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The Danish
gender equality
paradox in
leadership roles
INSIGHTS ON THE ROOT
CAUSES AND LEVERS
TO BUILD MORE
BALANCED LEADERSHIP
Report developed and published by The Diversity Council
June 2022
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The Danish
gender equality
paradox in
leadership roles
INSIGHTS ON THE ROOT
CAUSES AND LEVERS
TO BUILD MORE
BALANCED LEADERSHIP
 LIU, Alm.del - 2023-24 - Endeligt svar på spørgsmål 13: Spm. om talepapir fra åbent samråd den 20/2-2024 om inspirationskataloget Kønsbalance i ledelse
2828069_0004.png
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Table of contents
Executive summary
1.
The starting point for gender equality in Denmark and the Nordic gender
equality paradox
2.
The drivers behind gender imbalances in leadership roles are complex,
multifaceted and occur at each critical career step
2.1 Inspire
2.2 Attract
2.3 Promote
2.4 Retain
3.
Considerations for building a more balanced representation
of women in leadership roles
Bibliography
8
14
20
22
27
33
44
50
62
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
About the research
This research has been conducted and the report
written in the period February to May 2022 in a joint
collaborative effort led by The Diversity Council and
involving numerous Danish companies and public
organisations. This report aims to contribute to a
better understanding of the current state of gender
equality in managerial and executive jobs in Denmark
and possible levers to accelerate women’s careers in
leadership roles.
About The Diversity Council
The Diversity Council is a strategic corporate alliance
and a unique international diversity accelerator with
bold ambitions. The Diversity Council was founded
by Above & Beyond Group in Denmark, and its
key objectives are to address barriers to equality,
strengthen the female talent pipeline and create
more diverse and inclusive workplaces. The Diversity
Council brings together all levels of the partner
companies to empower cultural transformation,
with engagement from top management, HR
Heads and employees. The current members of
The Diversity Council are: AP Pension, Danmarks
Nationalbank, Coloplast, Dansk Erhverv, Gorrissen
Federspiel, Headspring Executive Development,
ISS, KPMG, Maersk, Maersk Drilling, Maersk Tankers,
McKinsey & Company, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of Denmark, NKT, PensionDanmark, PwC, Rambøll,
SAP, Tryg, Vestas and Board Network.
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About The Report
The report departs from establishing an
apparent paradox where women are significantly
underrepresented in managerial and executive roles,
despite Denmark being a frontrunner in having equal
opportunities across genders and having led the way
forward towards a more gender-equal society across
numerous dimensions such as universal healthcare,
access to education, voting rights and freedom
of speech.
To understand this paradox, we research the
problem from several lenses in a unified framework.
First, we establish four critical steps over the career
lifecycle – inspire, attract, promote and retain. We
then investigate i) macro-level factors across Nordic
and other European countries leading to the gender
equality paradox in leadership roles, such as
cross-country differences in policies, historical
background and societal norms and ii) micro-level
drivers within organisations throughout critical steps
of their career journeys.
The report leverages multiple sources of insight to
bring a novel perspective on the issue in a Danish
context. Firstly, we employed national statistics
across countries to offer evidence on drivers of
cross-country differences in gender parity across
dimensions. Secondly, we leveraged detailed
microdata on all higher education graduates in
Denmark, from 2008 to 2012 and followed their
careers over time. Thirdly, we employ a proprietary
survey on career choices, launched across more
than 10 large organisations in Denmark, providing
more than 4,500 responses. In addition, the report
puts forward concrete considerations that could
help narrow the gender imbalance in leadership roles
at multiple stages of the career funnel. Fourthly, 15
in-depth interviews were conducted with women
and men employed across various roles and seniority
levels from different partnering organisations to
understand their career journeys.
We would like to thank all partners for their support
and collaboration in the survey data collection for
this report. We would also like to thank Professor
Nabanita Datta Gupta of Aarhus University for her
valuable feedback and input to the research piece
and Marie-Louise Bang Pedersen, Boris Georgiev,
Emilie McFall, Marie Perry, Margrethe Andersen,
Senni Mut-Tracy, Anastasia Sætre Lihn, Tine
Arentsen Willumsen, Emily Tait, Janni Bové Schou,
Pernille Lassenius Kramp, Louise Mortensen, Sara
Jursic, Margot Slattery, Rachel Osikoya, Helena
Darmell, Lena Kjær, Jennifer Ruscelle, Lene Reitzel,
Rune Sloth Aasmoe and Julie Thrane Carlsen
for their contributions during the writing of the
report. Finally, we thank all participants from the
partner organisations in the qualitative interviews
throughout the research phase, bringing new insights
and perspectives to the topic of gender inequality
across the career ladder.
The research and analyses underpinning the report
were conducted by McKinsey & Company on behalf
of The Diversity Council.
Delimitations of the report
The report leverages multiple sources of information
and analytical and qualitative tools to derive
the conclusions and insights shared. Given the
complexity of the topic and multiple possible
confounding factors, established patterns and
relationships should not be interpreted as causal as
this is beyond the scope of this report. In addition,
the established considerations and potential
initiatives are based on case examples, academic
research articles, corporate reports and field
experiments. The considerations and initiatives have
been prioritised among the many possible initiatives
given the identified obstacles and challenges
with gender equality in Denmark. The outlined
considerations have different implementation
timelines and time-to-impact, hence the
prioritisation of initiatives is highly dependent on
the time horizon to achieve gender parity in
leadership roles.
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
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Executive
summary
Nordic countries are frontrunners across many
gender equality indicators, however, there are
substantial differences in the representation
of women in leadership roles
The Nordic countries are known as frontrunners
and strong advocates for gender equality and
women’s rights in society. Historically, they were
among the first countries to advance further steps
toward equality between genders such as voting
rights and access to education and the labour force.
Compared to other European countries, the Nordics
score on average higher in terms of some of the
fundamental equality indicators mentioned above.
Despite the above-average performance in many
aspects of gender equality in society, there are
significant differences in the perception of achieved
gender equality in leadership positions. In Denmark,
58 per cent of the population believes that gender
equality has been achieved in leadership roles,
whereas in Sweden only 38 per cent believe so.
However, looking at the actual share of women in
leadership roles, Sweden ranks the highest among
the Nordic countries and Denmark ranks last
(43 per cent versus 29 per cent). This gap between
Denmark and the rest of the Nordic countries has
existed for several decades and has been widening
over time. In 2001, the gap between Sweden and
Denmark was 9 percentage points, whereas in 2021
it was 14 percentage points. The implication of this
evolution is that the pipeline of women in leadership
roles in Denmark today is thinner compared to other
Nordic countries.
One explanation is that because of the perceived
equality in leadership roles in Denmark, improving
gender equality at the top has not been a strong
enough societal focus. Despite having the largest
share of women in management, Sweden is also
the country where society has a more reserved
and critical view of the achieved gender equality
in leadership.
The Nordic countries are highly similar in terms of
labour force participation, gender wage gap, financial
inclusion and access to education across genders.
9
However, the outcomes in terms of the share of
women in management are vastly different with
Denmark having the lowest share of women leaders
in the Nordics at 29 per cent. This is the Danish
gender equality paradox. This report offers a data-
driven perspective on the root causes behind the
paradox and potential considerations to build more
gender-balanced leadership in Denmark.
Understanding the root causes behind gender
inequality in leadership roles requires a holistic
analysis of the career lifecycle
Our approach analyses the gender paradox from a
career lifecycle point of view. The approach identifies
critical steps in the career journey, where significant
leakage of women talent is observed: 1) ‘Inspire’, 2)
‘Attract’, 3) ‘Promote’ and 4) ‘Retain’. The steps are not
discrete moments in time, but rather phases in one’s
career that at times overlap or intersect. The report
analyses each of them individually and seeks to:
- Shed light and inform the public debate on this
highly important topic for both society and the
business communities
- Provide a fact-based view on the key drivers behind
the gender paradox and obstacles leading to a low
representation of women at the top of the career
ladder in Denmark
- Offer a range of considerations to help narrow the
gender gap across the critical steps over the career
lifecycle of women
The report leverages multiple sources of data to offer
a holistic perspective on the factors, including:
•
National registry data on more than 30,000
graduates and public country-level statistics
•
A proprietary survey conducted among
approximately 4,500 employees in Denmark
•
More than 15 qualitative interviews with employees
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Gender imbalances manifest themselves
already at the educational stage, where the top
leadership-producing degrees are dominated by
men even though more women graduate overall
Starting with the step ‘Inspire’, we look into the
educational choices that men and women make
before joining the labour force by following the
career evolution of a cohort of all master’s degrees
graduates from 2008 and 2009. Firstly, we find
more women graduating with a master’s degree
than men (women represent 56 per cent of all
master’s graduates in 2021) and that the number of
women graduates has more than doubled over the
last 15 years. However, there are significant gender
imbalances across degrees. For example, the degrees
that produce the most managers and executives
1
are dominated by men graduates. The gender split
within the top leadership-producing degrees is
approximately 45 per cent women and 55 per cent
men. Therefore, women appear to be relatively
underrepresented in the degrees that are most
conducive to leadership careers.
Secondly, we find that men tend to self-select
more into the private sector compared to women.
This suggests that the gender imbalance is even
more pronounced in the private sector from the
very beginning of the career lifecycle. While the
educational background and sectoral employment
preferences play a role in the gender gap, they are
not primary drivers since one would then have
expected that throughout the career ladder, women
leaders would be between 45 and 56 per cent (the
educational gender split before entering the labour
force). However, the evidence shows that women
with the top leadership-producing degrees represent
only 29 per cent of managers and 19 per cent of
executives. Hence, events and circumstances across
the remaining critical moments – ‘Attract’, ‘Promote’
and ‘Retain’ appear to play a bigger role in explaining
the low representation of women in leadership roles.
Finally, we find that the share of women graduates
with top leadership-producing degrees is increasing.
However, this growing trend is not enough to close
the gender gap alone.
Men and women are equally ambitious to
become leaders, however, women face greater
challenges on their way to climbing the career
ladder due to established gender norms in
society, a higher degree of household-related
work and caregiving responsibilities and less
career support
The report finds that men and women are interested
in becoming leaders or executives to the same
extent, however gender-specific norms shape
differences in the motivation and discouragement
of taking on leadership roles. Women appear to
be more discouraged about managerial roles due
to a perception of too pronounced office politics
2
and challenges in combining family responsibilities
with increased job demands compared to men.
A representative Nordic survey also shows that
Denmark appears to have relatively more traditional
gender norms, where women are more often
perceived as the preferred primary caretaker,
compared to its Nordic peers with Sweden being the
most progressive.
Our survey results show that today women are
significantly more likely to be the main ones
responsible for household-related work and the
primary caregivers (43 per cent of women non-
managers versus 24 per cent of men) and these
differences remain along the career ladder. This
means that women are challenged to maintain
the same degree of availability and flexibility at
work since being a manager or executive requires
significant time commitment and experience.
The report also identifies significant differences in
parental leave policies across the Nordic countries,
seen as one of the main drivers behind the gender
paradox. Until a recent reform in Denmark in 2021,
fathers only had two weeks of earmarked parental
leave
3
according to national policy, compared to
14 and 15 weeks in Sweden and Norway, respectively.
Therefore, national policies in Denmark have
historically implicitly reinforced a more traditional
gender split in caregiving roles as mothers had
allocated most of the available parental leave to
them. Other Nordic countries have pursued a more
gender-balanced split in parental leave policies
and the recent policy change in Denmark moves in
the same direction as the other Nordic countries.
1 Business administration, Economics, Management, Technical sciences, Humanities and Science
2 Involves the use of power and social networking within the organisation to achieve changes.
3 With the recent reform from 2021, fathers in Denmark will receive 11 weeks of earmarked parental, starting from 2022.
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The policy change is therefore seen as an important
step towards levelling the playing field across genders.
In addition, women also receive career advancement
support on the way to the top, to a lesser extent
than men (via mentorship and sponsorship). Women
are 30 per cent less likely to be encouraged to take
on a high-profile project, ask for a promotion or be
recommended for a project. They are also 10 per
cent less likely to receive career-related guidance
or be connected to senior leaders to advise on their
career development. In addition, the survey findings
reveal that women are interacting informally with
senior leaders less frequently than men and that
they are two times more likely to never interact with
senior leaders. These findings suggest that women
generally have weaker networks in the workplace.
Altogether, these barriers are reflected in the gender
split along the career ladder. Based on the cohort
analysis of graduates from 2008/2009 with top
leadership-producing degrees, 29 and 19 per cent
of those who became managers and executives,
respectively, were women.
likely to experience differential treatment and
microaggressions. These findings imply that women
face ‘invisible’ obstacles and negative experiences
at the workplace more often than men and being a
women manager or top executive requires a higher
degree of resilience and courage.
Promoting and retaining women in leadership
roles throughout their career journeys requires a
consistent, fair and objective design of the career
ladder for all genders. The survey shows that career
advancement is perceived as less fair and objective
by women compared to men. At the managerial
level, 55 per cent of men agree that the system is
fair compared to only 44 per cent of women. At the
executive level, the relative differences are bigger: 71
per cent of men and 50 per cent of women believe
that the system is fair. This implies that women
who have succeeded in climbing the top have
experienced the promotion systems and the route
to a leadership career as less fair and objective.
This underlines the importance for organisations to
consider career advancement processes that are
transparent and inclusive regardless of gender.
Women face differential treatment on their
way to the top and organisations are not
inclusive enough
Retaining top talent in an organisation requires
an inclusive culture and an environment where
employees can thrive and bring their best to work,
without feeling concerned that they can face
differential treatment.
The survey results offer a glimpse into the experiences
that men and women have at the workplace in
Denmark. Women managers and executives are
significantly more likely to face microaggressions in
the form of having to justify their expertise or having
it questioned more than others, being interrupted
or spoken over and receiving comments on their
emotional state such as “you’re too angry, feisty and/
or emotional”. Between 40-50 per cent of women
have experienced this at the workplace, compared
to only 15-30 per cent of men. The frequency of
microaggressions intensifies along the career ladder.
Similarly, we find that both men and women ‘onlys’ – i.e.,
colleagues who are the only representatives of
their gender within a team or group, are also more
Organisations are not sufciently
recognizing and formalizing actions to
promote gender equality
While organisations have made progress in raising
awareness of the importance of gender diversity in
the workplace, employees perceive that relatively
few concrete actions have been taken in making this
a strategic priority.
The survey results report that more than 50 per cent
of managers do not know or believe DE&I efforts are
not formally recognised in their organisation
4
. This
suggests that incentives to promote gender diversity
are often not tied to performance management
schemes. Employees (45 per cent of non-managers
and 63 per cent of leaders) report that senior
leaders have spoken about the importance of
diversity, however, only between 10-20 per cent
of non-managers believe that concrete actions
and structures are in place in the form of training,
investing resources to promote DE&I, goal setting
and holding leaders accountable.
4 Excluding those employees who reported that they do not have any DE&I responsibilities and also do not spend time on it.
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Several practical considerations can
address each of the drivers behind the low
representation of women in leadership roles to
narrow the gender gap
Both private and public institutions can take several
actions to tackle each of the barriers that women
face when climbing the career ladder and narrow the
gender imbalances at every seniority level.
1 – Inspire the next generation through celebration
of women role models and talent development
programmes at the early education stage
The gender imbalances occur already when
graduates choose which degrees to pursue. Even
though the share of women graduates is increasing
among the most leadership-generating degrees,
significant road to parity is still ahead in STEM-
related degrees. Therefore, both public and private
institutions can launch promotional campaigns
for STEM-related fields, problem-solving events,
and competitions to attract girls from an early
age. Furthermore, celebrating successful women
at the top, raising awareness of their journeys and
role modelling can be effective tools in countering
gender-stereotypical beliefs about women. These
actions can encourage and fuel the motivation of the
younger generation of women to pursue leadership
careers as they would be able to see themselves in
the successful women who have reached the top of
the career ladder.
2 – Promote a family-friendly workplace culture and
challenge established gender roles in daily life by
supporting a balanced split of household duties and
caregiving responsibilities
Women’s higher share of household work and
caregiving responsibilities makes them relatively
less flexible and available in terms of working hours
compared to men. Companies can help level out
the playing field for men and women by establishing
family-friendly work policies and supporting
parents to manage household and caregiving
responsibilities. Examples include allowances
for outsourcing household-related work, paid
entitlements for children’s sickness and flexible
working arrangements. In addition, companies can
equalise parental leave policies between men and
women to incentivise a more equal split of parental
leave between mothers and fathers.
3 – Support talent on the way to the top through
mentorship, sponsorship, leadership programmes
and functional capability development
Accelerating the career paths of women requires
active involvement and engagement of senior
leadership in organisations. Women are still less
likely to receive career advancement support than
their men peers. Therefore, organisations should
establish mentorship and sponsorship programmes
specifically targeting top talent. Senior leaders
should focus on concrete actions to accelerate
women’s career paths such as recommending
mentees for promotions and projects but also
actively creating opportunities for them. In addition,
companies can further support the transition of
women into managerial career paths by providing
functional capability training (as a supplement to
educational background), leadership training and
preparation, but also managerial coaching for those
already in managerial roles.
4 – Promote an inclusive workplace culture and
design objective, transparent and fair promotion
processes
Changing workplace culture and practices to
better retain women talent relies on improving the
day-to-day experiences at the workplace but also
increasing the transparency and fairness of career
advancement. We propose several actions that
are conducive to fostering an inclusive workplace
culture, centred around investing in educational
sessions on biases, encouraging positive reinforcing
behaviours, continuously monitoring progress and
enforcing accountability. Fostering an inclusive
workplace culture requires involving and empowering
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employees at all levels in the organisation.
Companies should focus on designing fair and
objective advancement criteria and processes,
ensure consistency in the execution of those
processes and clearly communicate the criteria for
reaching leadership roles to improve the perceived
fairness of advancement.
5 – Visibly commit to DE&I goals, establish
accountability for meeting goals with leaders and
formally recognize employees’ DE&I efforts
Successfully improving DE&I requires commitment
and accountability at the top. Companies should
define clear goals and targets and continuously
measure and report progress on those (e.g., diverse
candidate slates) considering the starting point in
gender equality and the industry context. Goals and
targets need to be assigned to a specific person or
group to ensure accountability for reaching those
goals. In addition, organisations should reward
and incentivise prioritisation of efforts leading to
improvement of DE&I by linking concrete outcomes
to performance reviews and bonus pay-outs.
In conclusion, we hope that this report will:
i.
contribute to a better understanding of the key
drivers behind the low representation of women
in leadership roles in Denmark based on the novel
findings
ii. inspire organisations to take further actions in
building a more balanced gender split across all
layers based on the proposed considerations.
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
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1. The starting point
for gender equality in Denmark
and the Danish gender
equality paradox
The Nordic countries have a heritage in being
frontrunners in promoting gender equality
in society
Denmark and its Nordic neighbouring countries have
a long history of promoting gender equality in society,
particularly through structural regulatory measures.
This has placed the Nordics as a frontrunner region
on gender equality in many dimensions. As shown
in Exhibit 1, Denmark became the first country to
introduce compulsory education for both sexes
in 1814, Norway enacted the world’s first parental
leave law in 1892, Finland became the first country in
Europe to grant women the right to vote and stand for
election in 1906, and Sweden passed the first law in
the world on paid maternity leave in 1955.
The Nordic countries were also among the earliest
to legislate on daycare provision, introduce
paternity leave, as well as to pass laws prohibiting
the termination of employment on the grounds of
marriage or parenthood (Melby, Ravn and Carlsson
Wetterberg 2008; Hilson 2007; Valdimarsdóttir 2006;
Datta Gupta, Smith and Verner 2008). Ambitions for
gender equality have long been expressed explicitly
by these countries, and this commitment forms an
important part of the countries’ self-image.
In the last few decades, these countries have
continued to pursue gender equality in society
through various policies and initiatives. In the past,
Norway set gender quotas in 2003 for boards
of publicly traded companies, and Denmark set
requirements for companies to set targets, design
policies and report on progress on promoting gender
balance in 2012. Sweden increased the earmarked
portion of parental leave to 90 days for each parent
in 2016, and Iceland has required companies to
demonstrate that they pay equal wages to men
and women since 2018. In addition, in 2000 Iceland
was the first country to introduce a fully equalised
parental leave sharing scheme, three months for the
mother, three months for the father and 3 months to
be shared by both parents.
Gender equality paradox: Denmark is
performing among the top countries across
multiple gender equality indicators but is
lagging signicantly behind Nordic peers on the
share of women in management positions
Currently, Denmark performs well across various
measures of gender equality, such as labour force
participation, financial inclusion, educational
attainment, size of wage gap and generally has similar
scores to Nordic peers. Exhibit 2 illustrates Denmark’s
effort in establishing a society where both men and
women have equal freedom of choice with a few
indicators underlying the egalitarian nature of society:
•
Women in Denmark have
higher labour
force participation
rates than in most other
European countries.
•
Denmark has a relatively low gender wage
gap based on median earnings compared to
other countries.
•
Denmark has a
higher rate of women in
parliament
relative to men than most countries.
•
Denmark has a
higher representation of women
in higher education
than men.
•
Denmark is
one of the top performers in the
Women, Business and the Law index,
which
measures the legal rights of women across eight
indicators (mobility, workplace, pay, marriage,
parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets and pension).
Despite having achieved a high degree of gender
equality across many dimensions in society,
Denmark has been performing worse compared
to Nordic peers and most European countries on
women in managerial and executive positions. This
is at the core of the Danish gender equality paradox,
as it appears contradictory that Denmark scores
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
similarly well as its Scandinavian peers on gender
equality on multiple dimensions, but at the same
time trails behind on the representation of women at
the top of the career ladder. Nordic countries range
from 0.74 for Sweden (the best among these four
countries) to Norway at 0.53. Meanwhile, Denmark’s
ratio is 0.45.
5
This places Denmark among the
countries with the lowest women representation in
leadership roles, even when compared with European
countries outside the Nordics.
It is important to note that while some of the
fundamental gender equality indicators in Exhibit
2 would be expected to predict gender-equal
outcomes in the representation of women in
leadership, the relationship is more complex and
multiple other factors affect the outcomes along
the career ladder. Denmark is part of the region that
features some of the most gender-equal societies
seen from the lens of access to education, financial
inclusion, health outcomes and labour force
participation, and understanding what drives the
relatively low representation of women in leadership
roles in Denmark is at the core of this research.
leadership roles. Based on EU’s Eurobarometer survey
from 2017, 58 per cent of Danes think that gender
equality has been reached in leadership positions
already, ranking Denmark among the countries with
the most egalitarian perception of equality (Exhibit
3). The ranking exhibits that Denmark is also the
country together with the Netherlands where the gap
is largest as society overall perceives that equality has
been achieved, whereas the actual share of women
in management positions ranks significantly lower.
Countries such as Sweden have a ‘positive’ gap,
suggesting that their ranking in terms of perception
of achieved equality is lower than the rank in terms
of actual share of women in management positions.
Denmark stands out as the country with the largest
‘negative’ gap. This implies that the society holds
expectations, which are significantly more optimistic
towards gender diversity in leadership roles compared
to the evidence in the data.
The relatively lower share of women in
managerial positions in Denmark compared
to other Nordic countries has been present
for a long time and with signicant variation
across sectors
The historical evolution of the share of women
in managerial positions in Exhibit 4 reveals that
Denmark ranks last in the Nordics at 29 per cent in
2021. The Danish gender equality paradox is also a
long-standing issue since level differences in the
share of women in leadership roles existed since
the 2000s.
Compared to Nordic peers, Denmark has the
highest perception of achieved equality in
leadership positions in society, despite having
the lowest share of women in leadership roles
In addition, there appears to be a notable divergence
in societal perception of equality in leadership roles
compared to the actual representation of women in
Exhibit 1
Timeline of gender equality measures across the Nordics
Denmark
was the first
country in the world
to introduce
compulsory
education for both
sexes
Finland
was the first
country in the world
to
grant women the right
to vote
and be eligible for
parliamentary elections
Iceland
was the first
country in the world
where
a woman was
democratically elected
as head of state
The largest
Danish
companies
are required
to set targets, design
policies and report on
progress
on promoting
gender balance
Companies must
obtain a
certificate
showing that they pay
equal wages for work
of equal value to
avoid fines
1814
1906
1980
2012
2018
1892
Norway
was the first
country in the world
to enact a
law on
parental leave
1
1955
In 1955,
Sweden
was
the first country in the
world to enact a law
on
paid maternity
leave
and in 1974
followed this with
paid maternity leave
2003
Norway
was the first
country in the world
to introduce
gender
quotas on boards
for publicly traded
companies
2016
Sweden
increased
parent-specific leave:
90 days of parental
leave are reserved for
each parent
1. The law granted women who worked in factories 6 weeks of maternity leave. The first laws on parental leave were enacted primarily to combat infant mortality
Sources: National legislation; Statistics Denmark; Nordic Council of Ministers; Nordic Statistical Committee
5 A ratio of one indicates that for every 100 men at the manager level, there is an equal number of 100 women: a ratio of one therefore indicates gender
parity. Denmark’s ratio of 0.45 indicates that for every 100 men, there are only 45 women at the manager level.
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Exhibit 2
Comparison of gender equality indicators for selected countries
Gender equality in the workplace
Labour force
participation
rate,
women-to-
men ratio,
2020
Denmark
Sweden
Norway
Finland
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Germany
Austria
Italy
France
Spain
Latvia
Bulgaria
Hungary
1.
2.
0.87
0.90
0.90
0.88
0.85
0.85
0.83
0.83
0.69
0.85
0.82
0.82
0.79
0.73
Level of gender equality
Very high
High
Mid
Low
A ratio of 1 equals parity between genders
Gender equality in society
Share of
women in
board
positions,
women-to-
men ratio,
2021
0.54
0.61
0.71
0.54
0.62
0.61
0.56
0.53
0.63
0.83
0.48
0.29
0.28
0.10
Paid working
hours,
women-to-
men ratio
5
0.75
0.88
0.72
0.84
0.71
0.70
0.71
0.68
0.60
0.75
0.71
0.77
N/A
0.74
Wage gap,
women-to-
men ratio of
median
earnings
5
0.95
0.93
0.95
0.83
0.87
0.88
0.86
0.87
0.92
0.88
0.91
0.80
0.97
0.90
Share of
women in
management
positions,
women-to-
men ratio,
2021
4
0.41
0.77
0.53
0.58
0.34
0.61
1
0.42
0.54
0.42
0.60
0.51
0.85
0.62
0.60
Financial
inclusion,
Women,
women-to-
Business and men ratio
the Law
with a bank
index, index account,
2017
0-1
2
,
2022
1.00
1.00
0.97
0.98
0.98
0.98
0.98
0.88
0.97
0.98
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.91
1.00
1.01
1.01
1.00
1.00
0.99
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.95
0.96
0.98
1.04
0.92
Political
represent-
tation,
women-to-
men ratio of
members of
parliament,
2020
0.66
0.89
0.71
0.85
0.50
0.51
0.45
0.65
0.56
0.65
0.79
0.43
0.36
0.14
Education
level,
women-to-
men ratio of
tertiary
school
enrolment,
2019
1.28
1.38
1.32
1.16
1.12
3
1.27
1.02
1.18
1.26
1.20
1.18
1.28
1.20
1.19
Health,
women-
to-men ratio
of healthy
life
expectancy,
2019
1.01
1.01
1.01
1.03
1.00
1.01
1.04
1.03
1.02
1.03
1.02
1.10
1.08
1.07
Data computed as the average of Q1-Q3 2020 figures
The index measures how laws and regulations affect women’s economic opportunities. Overall scores are calculated by taking the average score of each of the 8 areas (Going Places, Starting a Job, Getting
Paid, Getting Married, Having Children, Running a Business, Managing Assets and Getting a Pension), with 1 representing the highest possible score
3. Data from 2018
4. Data computed as the average of Q1-Q4 2021 figures
5. Data from latest available year, 2018-2020
Source: World Bank; OECD; UNECE; Eurostat; European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)
Over the past 10 years, the share of women in
managerial positions has remained constant,
growing at less than 0.5 per cent annually and
the gap to the remaining Nordic countries has
widened as they have experienced general
growth. In 2001 the gap was nine percentage points
between Denmark and the highest-ranking country –
Exhibit 3
Perception of achieved equality in leadership positions
and actual share of women in management positions
across countries
Non-exhaustive
Sweden, increasing to 14 percentage points by 2021.
The low share of women in manager positions is
evident across all sectors in Denmark. As Exhibit
5 shows, even in the sectors where most of the
employees are women, men predominantly hold
the managerial roles. However, the sectors
6
with
% answered “Yes” to “Do you think that gender equality has
been achieved in leadership positions in companies and
other organisations in your country?
X
Ranking among EU member states"
Perception of achieved gender equality
in leadership positions,
%, 2017
Actual share of women in management
positions,
%
1
,
2021
Ranking gap between perceived and
actual equality
Latvia
Bulgaria
Denmark
Finland
Austria
Netherlands
Hungary
Germany
Sweden
Italy
Spain
France
27
25
49
44
43
38
35
62
58
58
57
69
1
3
6
6
9
16
19
21
25
26
27
28
29
34
38
30
25
38
2
46
2
38
2
29
37
35
1
6
24
12
16
26
11
20
-10
-18
-6
-7
-3
0
8
1
23
4
9
18
43
2
22
18
10
1. Numbers are rounded and computed as Q1-Q4 average; 2. Data from 2020 Q3
Source: Eurobarometer; Eurostat
6 Human health and social work; other service activities; education; and public administration; compulsory social security.
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Exhibit 4
Evolution of women’s share in leadership positions across Nordic countries, 2001 to 2021, per cent
Annualized change,
CAGR, %
45
43
40
39
37
35
35
+1
30
30
28
29
+2
+1
+1
+2
+2
Past 20 years,
2001-2021
Past 10 years,
2011-2021
+14 pp.
+2
-1
+9 pp.
25
26
+2
<+0.5
0
21
2001
03
05
07
09
11
13
15
17
19
2021
Source: Eurostat; The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)
the highest share of women managers also employ
a relatively higher share of women and feature
relatively lower earnings compared to other sectors.
7
Understanding the root causes behind the
gender inequality in leadership roles requires
a holistic analysis of the career lifecycle
Based on the evidence presented so far,
Denmark has a comparatively low share of women
in managerial roles across sectors despite
having achieved gender equality across other
fundamental areas of society such as educational
attainment, labour force participation and health
outcomes. The gender equality paradox in Denmark
begs the question of what drives the lack of women
at the top.
Our approach investigates the question by looking
at critical steps across the career lifecycle. We
label these as ‘Inspire’, ‘Attract’, ‘Promote’ and
‘Retain’ (Exhibit 6). The steps are not discrete
moments in time but rather phases in one’s career
that at times overlap or intersect. We analyse them
separately to identify factors that help explain
the gender imbalance at each step. Chapter 2
analyses each step in the career lifecycle, and
chapter 3 offers considerations to help reduce
the gender gap.
-
Inspire: Making educational choices that are
most conducive to managerial career paths.
At this critical step, women make choices
on educational degree and professional
development path to pursue before entering
the labour market. Choices made at this stage
determine the talent pipeline at the beginning
of the funnel, and we investigate the
underlying developments in educational
choices and employment sector preferences.
-
Attract: Attracting talented women to
managerial career paths.
At this stage, women
decide whether to pursue a leadership career.
This is the time when women also commit to
skill development and consider trade-offs on
the path to becoming managers. We investigate
the motivating and discouraging factors for
women to pursue leadership careers.
-
Promote: Promoting women to leadership
roles.
At this step, women receive increased
responsibility for managing others and
transition to leadership or executive roles. In
the analyses, we investigate the obstacles that
women face when stepping up to managerial
jobs, such as workplace practices, unpaid
work and caregiving responsibilities, as well
as the career support received at this
critical stage.
7 We
nd
a negative correlation of -0.3 between average hourly remuneration and the share of women managers in a given sector. For example, the
ve
highest-earning sectors all have less than 20 per cent women managers: Financial and insurance (19 per cent), mining and quarrying (8 per cent), elec-
tricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (6 per cent), information and communications (10 per cent), and knowledge-based services (19 per cent).
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Exhibit 5
Women share of employees and managers
by sector in 2019
Insights
• All sectors have less than 50% women managers
• All sectors have “leaks” in the pipeline as there are less
women managers than women employees
Share of women employees
Share of women managers
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
82
62
52
44
31
19
8
11
6
9
10
6
22
16
10
10
22
19
12
19
46
41
44
53
47
43
38
31
20
51
64
41
34
25
30
25
13
21
27
17
Human health and social work
Arts, entertainment and
recreational activities
Agriculture, forestry and fishing
Public administration, defence
and compulsory social security
Travel agent, cleaning, and
other operational services
Accommodation and food
service activities
Electricity, gas, steam and
air conditioning supply
Wholesale and retail trade
Other service activities
Mining and quarrying
Construction
Education
Information and communication
Financial and insurance
Source: Statistics Denmark; tables LIGEAB8 and LIGEDI8
-
Retain: Keeping women in leadership careers
for the long run.
At this stage, the key objective
is to retain women in managerial and executive
careers upon being promoted and ensuring an
inclusive environment at the workplace. The
analyses investigate the impact of workplace
Water supply, sewerage and
waste management
inclusion, allyship, support and mentorship for
women managers and executives.
Next, we turn to exploring the drivers behind the
gender equality paradox in Denmark.
Exhibit 6
Framework for analysing gender inequality across the career life cycle
3
Promote
Education and
preferences
Non-
manager
Manager
Knowledge-based services
Real estate activities
Executive
1
Inspire
2
Attract
4
Retain
Activity not stated
Manufacturing
Transportation
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
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2. The drivers behind
gender imbalances in
leadership roles are complex,
multifaceted and occur at
each critical career step
We leverage multiple sources of insight to untangle what drives the gender equality paradox in Denmark.
First, we employ a proprietary survey of 4,575 men and women in the workplace, conducted in Denmark
to understand what holds women back from progressing along the career ladder. Second, we leverage
country-level statistics and representative surveys to shed light on country-specific differences in
norms, attitudes, and perceptions. Third, we analyse a unique dataset from Statistics Denmark, covering
all tertiary education graduates in Denmark from 2008 to 2012, allowing us to track their individual career
progression, educational, employment and occupational choices until 2020.
Career Choice Survey 2022
Timeframe:
4 March to 15 April (in waves)
Coverage:
Diversity Council members and additional companies, covering both medium-sized to large
private and public organisations in Denmark across industries such as: professional and
nancial
services,
information technology, transportation, consumer goods, industrial goods and services
Number of respondents:
4,575 (only Denmark-based) across different levels of the corporate hierarchy
Composition by role:
• 111 executives (2.4%) (e.g., Senior Vice President, Associate/Junior Partner, Partner, CFO, CEO, CTO, CHRO, etc.)
• 1,384 managers (30.3%) (e.g., Product Manager, Store Manager, Supervisor, Regional Manager,
Division Manager, Lawyer with management responsibility, etc.)
• 3,080 non-managers (67.3%) (e.g., Analyst, Engineer, Paralegal/Lawyer, Operations Support, Cashier,
Field Sales, etc.)
Composition by gender:
• 2,442 men (53.4%),
• 2,076 women (45.4%)
• 57 non-binary (1.2%)
Survey themes:
• Overall job satisfaction and happiness in the workplace
• Career path
• Flexible and family-friendly work environment
• Household composition and responsibilities
• Mentorship and sponsorship
• Wellness, mental health and burnout
• Managerial and organisational initiatives
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Longitudinal registry data from Statistics Denmark
Analysis timeframe:
2008 to 2020 (annual observations)
Unit of observation:
Individuals
Population:
All higher education graduates in Denmark from 2008-2012 across all degrees
Available information:
• Anonymised unique personal identier
• Gender
• Age
• Year of graduation
• Type of education and detailed degree name
• Employment sector and industry
• Detailed occupation
• Hourly wage
• Parental status and number of children
2.1 Inspire
We first analyse the talent pipeline and participation
of women across sectors and educational degrees.
As we outline in sub-chapter 2.2, managerial and
executive roles require a complex set of skills,
combining both hard and soft skills. For example,
managers typically have to oversee financial
performance of teams or business units, develop
plans, conduct quantitative and qualitative analyses,
build teams, mentor and lead employees towards
a common goal. Hence, successful managers excel
across multiple skill dimensions such as i) technical,
ii) administrative, iii) human skills and iv) cooperative
and orienting (citizenship behaviour) (Tonidandel,
Braddy and Fleenor 2012). Therefore, degrees that
provide exposure to subjects and areas where such
skills can be developed might be helpful in paving the
way to a leadership pathway.
Increasing the share of women in managerial and
executive roles requires a robust talent pipeline both
within relevant degrees and employment sectors at
the very beginning of the funnel. At the ‘Inspire’ stage
Exhibit 7
Women’s share of master’s degree graduates and evolution of total number of graduates
Degrees with underrepresentation of women
Women share
of graduates
2006
52%
51%
42%
57%
57%
80%
76%
24%
68%
39%
63%
80%
55%
66%
79%
Higher education degree,
Masters programmes
Social science
Ÿ
Ÿ
Ÿ
Ÿ
Ÿ
master’s
1
2021
56%
57%
48%
61%
64%
82%
86%
34%
68%
46%
69%
84%
56%
69%
70%
Change
in p.p.
3
4%
5%
6%
4%
6%
2%
10%
10%
1%
7%
6%
5%
1%
3%
-10%
Total graduates
in 2006
12,826
4,391
2,404
738
729
425
95
1,633
2,687
1,311
1,337
203
685
373
73
Total graduates
in 2021
24,424
9,493
5,576
1,357
1,274
769
517
3,881
3,417
2,701
2,479
879
758
654
162
Change relative
to 2006
~2x
~2x
~2x
~2x
~2x
~2x
~5x
~2x
~1.5x
~2x
~2x
~4x
~1x
~2x
~2x
Business administration, economics, management
Other, social science
2
Law
Psychology
Sociology
Technical sciences
Humanities and theological
Science
Health science
Educational
Arts
Agriculture, nature and environment
Food, biotechnology and laboratory technology
1. Police, armed forces and defence master’s degrees excluded from analysis
2. Includes: political science, anthropology, European studies, globalization programmes
3. Numbers are rounded
Source: Statistics Denmark
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Exhibit 8
Educational background of managers and executives across private and public sector based
X
Number of managers/executives
X% - Share of women
More men graduates
on 2008 to 2009 MSc. graduates
Share of managers by sector
1
Gender split
in education
Private
Public
59%
14%
10%
5%
4%
2%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
1,734
37%
1. The sample only covers Master’s graduate cohorts from 2008-2009 that became managers or executives by 2020
2. Due to anonymity reasons, shares not reported
Source: Statistics Denmark
More women graduates
Share of executives by sector
1
Private
62%
9%
7%
4%
6%
5%
2%
1%
9%
12%
N/A
2
Higher education degrees, master’s
Business administration, economics, management
Humanities and theological
Technical sciences
Science
Other, social science
Law
Health science
Agriculture, nature and environment
Educational
Psychology
Arts
Sociology
Public
30%
12%
3%
N/A
2
36%
13%
2%
4%
15%
4%
2%
1%
20%
1%
1%
1%
651
51%
23%
1%
N/A
2
4%
4%
N/A
2
N/A
2
2%
N/A
2
472
26%
169
57%
men and women make the choice of what to study,
what type of work to do and in which sector to work.
More women graduate than men across most
higher education degrees, however, women are
still underrepresented in degrees producing
the most managers and executives
Over the past 15 years, Denmark has experienced a
significant growth in the number of higher education
graduates across all degrees. Compared to 2006, the
number of master’s degree graduates has doubled, and
the share of women graduates has been increasing.
Women today outnumber men across most degrees,
with significant variation depending on the type of study.
Exhibit 7 shows that the proportion of women
graduates has increased from 52 per cent to 56
per cent over the past 15 years. A closer look at
the specific master’s degrees reveals that women
remain underrepresented in areas such as business
administration, economics, management, technical
and science degrees. Historically, these degrees have
been perceived as more suitable for men due to gender
stereotypes. These tend to be degrees leading to better
paying jobs and the ones producing a significant share
of graduates where men still outnumber women.
While the gap is narrowing in these selected degrees,
the different educational choices among women
and men can be rationalised by two complementary
theories. First, the relative lack of role-models of the
same gender at the top of the career ladder with the
above educational backgrounds helps explain why
fewer women choose to pursue such degrees. The
opposite examples of men role models with those
degrees are abundant. Carrell et al. (2010) provide
evidence using data from the U.S. Air Force Academy,
where women students assigned to women academics
for their intro courses in sciences, performed better
and remained longer in the same technical or science
employment field compared to women students
assigned to professors who were men. Second,
gender stereotypes play a role in defining educational
choices. Eagly and Karau (2002) explain the different
educational and occupational choices of women
through the lens of role congruity theory. Members
of a certain group would be more accepted and
viewed better if their actions and behaviour match
the group’s social roles, determined by communal
and agentic attributes. Social roles theory (Eagly 1987)
indicates that communal attributes such as being kind,
affectionate, gentle and sensitive are attributed more
often to women. Agentic traits, such as being assertive,
dominant and confident are more often attributed
to men. Therefore, gender stereotypes play a role and
influence the types of educational and employment
choices that men and women make.
Exhibit 8 examines two graduate cohorts from 2008
and 2009 and looks at their career progression until
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
2020. Among those who became managers and
executives in the private sector, 59 to 62 per cent
had a business-related degree, followed by either
a humanities background or technical science
education. Three out of the top four degrees that
produce the most managers or executives are also
men-dominated. Despite women increasing their
share, they still remain underrepresented in the
degrees that have produced the most managers or
executives, leading to gender imbalances already at
the start of the talent pipeline.
Graduates who became managers or executives in the
public sector came from more diverse backgrounds,
as business-related degrees only account for one-
third, whereas other social science degrees such as
political science, law, humanities, health science and
education degrees produce relatively more managers
or executives in the public sphere. This is partially to
be expected, as managers and executives in areas
such as healthcare and education are developed
from within the system, i.e., where medical staff or
schoolteachers rise to become heads of hospitals or
school principals, respectively.
In the private sector, where most of the managers and
executives come from men-dominated degrees, the
share of women in managerial and executive roles is
significantly lower - 37 and 26 per cent, respectively.
In the public sector, more diverse educational
backgrounds make up the managerial and executive
layer. Business-related degrees represent 30 to
Exhibit 9
Choice of sectoral employment across graduate cohorts
36 per cent, and the rest of leaders come from
predominantly women-dominated degrees.
The notion of certain degrees such as technical
sciences, science, business and economics being
perceived as more attractive for men has been widely
researched in the literature (Miller et al. 2018). Evidence
suggests that much of the gender segregation of
interests towards specific educational subjects
develops already during childhood. Miller et al. (2018)
conduct an extensive meta-analysis of 78 ‘Draw-a-
scientist’ studies and find that:
1
Children depict more often men as scientists
starting from age 7 to 8 once they begin school and
over children’s age, the gap increases (four to one
by the age of 14 to 15)
2
Over time, this gap has been shrinking as a result
of the increased representation of women in
sciences. Boys’ likelihood of drawing a woman
scientist rose by 400 per cent between 1985 and
2016, indicating the changing gender stereotypes
A larger share of men graduates enters the private
sector compared to women with gaps remaining
within social science, technical and scientic
degrees, leading to talent pipeline imbalance
While current trends show that the gap between
the number of men and women graduates is closing
also in currently men-dominated degrees, a second
Gender imbalances in choice of employment sector
2
Men
Women
Public sector
Higher education degree, master’s
1
Master’s programmes
Social science
Ÿ
Business admin., economics, management
Ÿ
Other, social science
Ÿ
Law
Ÿ
Psychology
Ÿ
Sociology
Humanities and theological
Technical sciences
Health science
Science
Educational
Arts
Agriculture, nature and environment
Food, biotechnology and lab. technology
Gender split of cohort graduates
43%
57%
46%
54%
55%
45%
40%
60%
35%
65%
18%
19%
34%
29%
27%
43%
20%
42%
34%
16%
58%
66%
57%
66%
71%
73%
Private sector
MSc. graduates
(cohort: 2008-2012) Employment sector upon graduation by gender
72,311
28,665
17,366
4,391
3,947
82%
81%
2,432
529
16,231
7,439
6,067
5,593
80%
3,873
2,580
1,497
84%
366
30%
28%
27%
26%
24%
42%
36%
45%
32%
44%
26%
39%
19%
26%
51%
53%
28%
44%
64%
65%
48%
51%
38%
38%
17%
25%
68%
56%
74%
61%
81%
74%
49%
47%
72%
56%
36%
35%
52%
49%
62%
62%
83%
75%
64%
55%
70%
72%
73%
74%
76%
58%
81%
79%
19%
21%
78%
73%
22%
27%
1. Excludes police, armed forces and defence master’s degrees
2. Defined if difference in share of private sector exceeds 5pp between men and women within a degree
Source: Statistics Denmark
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Exhibit 10
Career lifecycle and progression to leadership roles across gender and employment sector for all graduates
from 2008 and 2009
X% - Probability of reaching role
X
Share of total graduates within a role
Split
1
Private sector
Non-managers
Manager
Executive
Public sector
Non-managers
Manager
Executive
12%
Men
9,25
9
47%
1,099
63%
378
4%
5,272
36%
6%
320
49%
1%
73
43%
74%
6%
Women
10,401
53%
635
37%
165
1%
9,306
64%
4%
331
51%
1%
96
57%
26%
1.
Total number of MSc. graduates in 2008 and 2009 is 24,959. Sum of employees across sectors and roles do not sum to total graduates as over the period employees can switch across roles and sectors
Source: Statistics Denmark
component determining the talent pipeline for future
managerial and executive roles is the choice of sectoral
employment. Exhibit 9 analyses where master’s
graduates in 2008/2009 found employment upon
finishing their degree. On aggregate 44 per cent of
women graduates tend to enter the public sector,
compared to only 32 per cent of men. These preferences
are more pronounced especially in degrees such as
business administration, economics and management,
law, technical sciences and science. Except for law, these
are also the degrees that are still dominated by men.
For example, there is a 10-percentage-point gap in the
relative shares between men and women graduates in
business administration, economics and management
degrees. In addition, a lower share of men entered the
public sector compared to women, adding an extra
seven-percentage-point gap in the private sector (26
per cent of women graduates went to the public sector
compared to only 19 per cent for men).
from 2008/2009 until 2020 and compare them
to the initial pipeline of how many assumed a
managerial or executive role in that time frame
across the private and public sector.
Exhibit 10 shows that across all degrees, more
women entered the private sector (53 per cent
versus 47 per cent). However, only 6 per cent of
women became managers at some point compared
to 12 per cent of men. Hence, at the managerial
level, two in three managers are men and the odds
decrease for women further down the funnel, as only
one per cent became executives relative to
4 per cent of men. In relative terms, men are
approximately two times more likely to become
managers (12 per cent versus 6 per cent) than women
despite there being fewer men entering the private
sector from the analysed cohorts. The relative
differences are exacerbated even further when
looking at executive roles, where men are around
three times more likely to become executives. Those
findings are in line with the results from our Career
Choice Survey conducted in Denmark, where around
65 per cent of managers are reported to be men
across participating companies.
From the 2008/2009 cohorts significantly more
women entered the public sector upon graduation
compared to men. However, despite men being
underrepresented at the start of the funnel, they
assume almost an equal share of managerial
positions – 49 per cent vs. 51 per cent, implying that
among all men with higher education who entered
25
In the private sector, men graduates are
around two times and around three times more
likely to become managers and executives,
respectively, compared to women. In the public
sector, men are still around 1.5 times more
likely to become managers and equally likely to
become executives relative to women
To quantify the differences in making it to leadership
roles between genders, we analyse over time the
career progression of master’s degree graduates
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Exhibit 11
Career lifecycle and progression to leadership roles across gender and employment sector for graduates
from Business administration, Economics and Management degrees from 2008 and 2009
X% - Probability of reaching role
X
Share of total graduates within a role
Split
1
Private sector
Non-managers
Manager
Executive
Public sector
Non-managers
Manager
Executive
22%
3,278
59%
725
71%
7%
237
81%
1,067
48%
13%
136
59%
2%
29
57%
Men
13%
2,304
41%
301
29%
55
2%
1,155
52%
8%
96
41%
2%
22
43%
Women
19%
1.
Total number of MSc. graduates in Business administration, Economics and Management in 2008 and 2009 is 6,182. Sum of employees across sectors and roles do not sum to total graduates as over
the period employees can switch across roles and sectors
Source: Statistics Denmark
the public sector, 6 per cent of them became
managers, whereas for women it was only 4 per cent.
In the public sector, the relative gap in making it to
a managerial position is smaller; however, women
face lower odds in becoming managers even though
64 per cent of the entry level non-managers in the
public sector were women.
Exhibit 11 focuses on the transition to managerial
and executive roles for graduates from 2008/2009
that came from the degrees, which produced the
most leaders - business administration, economics
or management. This analysis takes into account
that women may have different preferences and
degree choices, which can have implications on
the pathways towards managerial and executive
careers. In Exhibit 11 we compare men and women
who have the same educational background and
who have self-selected into the same sector. Exhibit
12 visualises the results from the cohort analysis
above and presents a simplified view of the career
progression patterns of the 2008/2009 graduates
across sectors.
The results show that the relative differences in
career progression are smaller between genders when
looking within an educational background; however,
they remain significant in magnitude (see Table 1).
This implies that preferences and different choices of
degrees account for a small proportion of the gender
gap. The significantly lower probabilities for women
to become managers and executives suggest that
other drivers are predominantly at play throughout the
career lifecycle. In sub-chapters 2.2-2.4, we discuss the
key underlying factors behind the equality paradox.
The gender gap in managerial and executive
roles cannot be closed based only on current
trends of increasing share of women graduates
in higher education and in degrees that are
most conducive to leadership careers
Finally, a simulation analysis looks to what extent
the underlying trends of i) more women graduating
from master’s degrees traditionally dominated by
men and ii) increasing share of women entering the
private sector can narrow the gap.
Exhibit 13 shows that with current trends, gender
equality in the number of women graduates can be
achieved within the next seven to nine years in two
out of the four degrees historically producing the
most leaders in the private sector. For example, the
share of women graduates in business, economics
and management is expected to equal that of males
by 2026; however, parity in the share of women
entering the private sector with the same degree
would not be achieved before 2029. The gap appears
more significant within technical science,
8
where in
8 See McKinsey & Company, 2018, for in-depth perspective on the drivers behind the talent gap within STEM degrees and jobs in Denmark.
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Exhibit 12
Simplied view of the representation of women in the private and public sector for every 100 men graduates
that enter the private sector
Other educational background
Business administration, economics and management background
Private sector
Men
Executive
Managers
Non-
managers
Women
Public sector
Men
Women
For every 100 men entering the
private sector as non-managers,
35 have a business-related degree
12 become managers and,
out of those, 8 have a business-
related degree
4 become executives with
3 of them having a business-
related degree
Source: Statistics Denmark
112 women enter the private
sector, out of which 25 have a
business-related degree
7 become managers and,
out of those, 3 have a business-
related degree
1 becomes an executive and
typically has a business-
related degree
101 women enter the public sector,
57 men enter the public sector as
non-managers, out of which 12 have out of which 12 have a business-
related degree
a business-related degree
3 become managers and,
out of those, 1 has a business-
related degree
1 becomes an executive with an
educational background other
than business
4 become managers and,
out of those 1 has a business-
related degree
1 becomes an executive with
an educational background other
than business
the former the share of women graduates would
only reach around 43 per cent by 2033. Within
sciences, parity between graduates would be
achieved by 2029.
While those positive trends contribute to closing the
gap and ensuring a more equally distributed talent
pipeline, they alone are insufficient to resolve the
gender imbalance at managerial and executive level
that occurs further down the career funnel.
2.2 Attract
This sub-chapter establishes the broad requirements
for managerial and executive roles while also
analysing the ambition and underlying drivers of
motivation/deterrents of men and women for
pursuing such roles. ‘Attract’ is the stage at which
men and women determine their career ambitions,
occupational choices and decide whether to pursue
leadership careers.
Exhibit 13
Forecast of women’s share among graduates across educational backgrounds
Men
Women
Share of women (RHS)
Gender parity reached
Women graduates within business administration, economics,
management, per cent share and count
6,000
5,500
5,000
4,500
4,000
3,500
3,000
2,500
54
52
50
48
46
44
Women graduates within technical science, per cent share and count
5,000
4,500
4,000
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
55
50
45
40
35
Women graduates within business administration, economics,
management working in the private sector, per cent share and count
5,000
4,500
4,000
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
2021 22
24
25
26
27
28
29
23
Source: Statistics Denmark; Gender parity forecasting model
30
31
32
54
52
50
48
46
44
2033
Women graduates within sciences, per cent share and count
2,600
2,400
2,200
2,000
1,800
1,600
1,400
1,200
2021
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
54
52
50
48
46
44
2033
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Table 1
Comparison of probabilities of becoming a manager or executive across degrees versus business, economics
or managerial degrees only
Probability of becoming a manager
With any degree
(across all masters
degrees)
In the
private
sector
Men
Women
Ratio between
probabilities
(men/women)
~12%
~6%
1.9x
In the
public
sector
~6%
~4%
1.7x
With a business,
economics or
management degree
In the
private
sector
~22%
~13%
1.7x
In the
public
sector
~13%
~8%
1.5x
Probability of becoming an executive
With any degree
(across all masters
degrees)
In the
private
sector
~4%
~1%
3.2x
In the
public
sector
~1%
~1%
1.3x
With a business,
economics or
management degree
In the
private
sector
~7%
~2%
3.0x
In the
public
sector
~3%
~2%
1.4x
Source: Statistics Denmark; database of graduate cohorts: 2008-2009
Managerial and executive roles require a
complex set of skills, taking signicant effort
and time to master
In today’s world, business outcomes are influenced
by factors such as constantly new emerging
technologies, increasing geopolitical uncertainty,
value-chain disruptions, energy transition and
climate change. A complex set of skills is required
for managerial and executive roles to navigate the
heightened uncertainty, complexity and rapid pace
of change. Transitioning from a managerial role to a
top executive role particularly increases the scope
and complexity of the job (Watkins 2012). Gartner
(2019) reports that the demands for executives
that master both soft and hard skills are growing,
with the most notably emerging high-demand skills
ranging from design thinking, strategic management
and adaptability on the soft side, and artificial
intelligence and data analytics on the hard side.
Becoming a high-performing executive relies strongly
on one’s ability to effectively manage time and, more
importantly, make decisions so others can manage
their time to produce the best results and outcomes
(Drucker 2002). Developing and mastering the skill
sets required for the role while also executing the role
effectively takes significant effort and experience.
Given the nature of the skills, they are typically
developed through years or decades of exposure
to different strategic roles and cross-functional
projects, and therefore less straightforward to teach
28
and acquire through formal education. Therefore,
the breadth and depth of experiences are important
for managers and especially executives to rely on
when faced with uncertainty and constant need
for change.
Based on the analysis of a 2008/2009 cohort of
graduates in Denmark, becoming a leader takes
significant time and experience: men are, on average,
39.3 years old when they get their first executive
role, while women are, on average, 40.3 years old.
The averages reflect the time it takes to become
managers and executives for more recent graduate
cohorts as the cohorts could only be observed until
2020; a subpopulation of graduates may become
managers or executives at a slower rate. Hence,
the 39 to 40 years of age for becoming managers/
executives should be viewed as a lower bound and
does not reflect the average of all managers and
executives in Denmark.
Men and women appear equally ambitious
about wanting to become leaders, but they
have different concerns and motivational
drivers for the managerial and executive roles
The significant effort, skill development and
experience required to be able to perform
in an executive role naturally entail frequent
reprioritisation of time, including having less
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”I believe the internal company politics game would
be more comfortable for female executives if we had
more women at the top – we also know how to play
the game, we just play it in a dierent way”
— Woman in executive role
Exhibit 14
Share of men and women who want to reach
managerial/leadership and executive positions
1
Men
Share of employees who want to
become a manager or leader
Women
and 52 per cent of women respond that they want to
be a leader or a manager, and 30 per cent of men and
27 per cent of women respond that they want to be a
top executive, respectively.
The survey analysis finds that both men and women
are motivated to bring success to their organisation
while also influencing workplace culture and role
modelling for others (Exhibit 15). However, it appears
that women are significantly more motivated to be
a role model for others compared to men, especially
at the executive level: 54 per cent of women report
role modelling as a motivator for the executive role
and only 42 per cent of men do. In comparison,
men appear to be more motivated by the financial
rewards that come with both being a manager and
a top executive compared to women despite this
not being among the top-ranked motivators for
either gender. This notion is consistent with the
observation that the Nordic countries are among
the wealthiest societies with developed welfare
systems, which contribute to reduced inequality;
thus, financial aspects of the managerial and
executive jobs appear to have a limited impact on
57%
52%
Share of employees who want to
become a top executive
30%
27%
1. Numbers are rounded
Note: sample sizes: n = 3,433 respondents answered if they want to become a manager/leader
(excl. those who are already leaders), n = 4,248 respondents answered if they want to become
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
time to spend on and less flexibility around other
responsibilities and personal activities. The elevated
requirements to sustain an executive/managerial
role cater to a much smaller proportion of employees
who believe the trade-offs are worthwhile. The
survey analysis finds that men and women have
similar ambition levels to become leaders and
executives as shown in Exhibit 14. 57 per cent of men
Exhibit 15
Drivers of motivation for managerial/leader and executive roles across genders
Men
Women
Motivator relatively stronger for women
Motivator relatively stronger for men
Drivers of motivation for an executive role,
Drivers of motivation for a manager/leader role,
% of employees who report each of the motivators % of employees who report each of the
motivators attract them to an executive role
1
attract them to a manager or leader
1
I would like to have greater impact on the success of my organisation
I would like to have more influence on the culture of my workplace
It gives me an opportunity to be a role model for others like me
I like to lead others
I am interested in that type of work
It gives me a better position to have a positive impact on the world
For my own sense of accomplishment
To be recognized for my achievements and success
I like the financial rewards that come with being in the role
I think the prestige that comes with being in the role is attractive
Other
6%
6%
23%
26%
9%
6%
2%
30%
33%
53%
53%
54%
51%
31%
35%
31%
32%
11%
2%
26%
27%
12%
66%
69%
60%
54%
56%
55%
42%
41%
36%
50%
43%
53%
67%
57%
54%
53%
48%
42%
37%
30%
35%
69%
1. Numbers are rounded
Note: analysis for drivers of motivation for a manager/leader role includes respondents who 1) already are or want to become a leader/manager, and 2) selected that they do not want to become a top executive
(sample sizes: n = 828 for men and n = 656 for women). Analysis for drivers of motivation for an executive role includes respondents who already are or want to become a top executive (sample sizes: n = 859 for
men and n = 644 for women)
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Exhibit 16
Drivers of deterrents for a managerial/leader role and an executive role across genders
Men
Women
Discouragement relatively stronger for women
Drivers of discouragement for a manager/leader role,
% of employees who report each of the motivators
attract them to a manager or leader role
Too much politics
I don’t think I can be in the role and care for my family at the same time
I cannot be the kind of parent I want to be while being in the role
I do not want to make changes to my current work-life balance
I would get burned out if I were in the role (too much stress and responsibility) 20%
It would take too much time away from other activities I’d like to pursue
I don’t think I have the skills to be successful in the role
I am not interested in that type of work
People in the role that look like me deal with too much
mistreatment and discrimination
I do not want to make changes to the content of my current job
I’m so behind in my career because of the pandemic that it
seems out of reach
Other
None of the above
1%
3%
4%
12%
2%
7%
7%
7%
9%
15%
15%
27%
16%
35%
38%
13%
14%
18%
19%
34%
26%
31%
40%
42%
44%
Drivers of discouragement for an executive
role,
% of employees who report each of the
motivators attract them to an executive role
40%
26%
25%
26%
20%
26%
17%
18%
3%
4%
2%
4%
7%
8%
5%
2%
4%
11%
20%
20%
31%
29%
27%
27%
28%
47%
Note: analysis for drivers of discouragement for a manager or leader role includes respondents who 1) are not already a leader/manager, and 2) do not want to become a top executive (sample sizes: n = 1,299 for
men and n = 1,241 for women). Analysis for drivers of discouragement for an executive role includes respondents who are not already and do not want to become a top executive (sample sizes: n = 1,633 for men
and n = 1,273 for women)
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
the attractiveness of these jobs compared to other
regions such as Eastern Europe.
9
Gender differences become even more apparent
when men and women report their concerns and
deterrents regarding managerial and executive
roles. A higher share of men and women report
concerns about having an executive role compared
to a managerial/leader role, and these concerns are
especially greater for women (Exhibit 16).
For the managerial roles, the survey analysis finds that
men and women are most discouraged by internal
company politics, reported by 42 to 44 per cent of the
respondents. In addition, women appear to be much
more discouraged by having to change their current
work-life balance, take on more responsibilities and
risk burning out more compared to men.
Exhibit 16 further shows that the increase in
responsibilities and risk of burning out are also
significantly stronger deterrents for women compared
to men. This suggests that women are facing higher
invisible barriers than men when they climb the
career ladder, which we explore in later chapters
by also looking at how household and caregiving
responsibilities influence career advancement and
how senior leaders are taking action to support
women’s career progression. For the executive role,
both men and women are most discouraged by
internal company politics. However, this appears to
be a much stronger concern for women compared to
men: while 47 per cent of the women report this as a
discouragement, only 40 per cent of men do.
Compared to men, women are also generally more
concerned about making changes to their current
work-life balance and being less able to care for
family while being a manager/leader or an executive
(Exhibit 16). To further understand possible reasons
behind the gender differences in not pursuing
managerial careers, we explore the role of gender
norms, societal attitudes on primary caregiving
responsibilities and stereotypical behaviour.
Gender stereotypes inuence the choices and
preferences of women and men in society
Choices made by men and women early on in life,
such as education and employment sector are not
randomly driven but are rather shaped by multiple
factors, such as social norms, gender stereotypes
and individual gender preferences. These choices
also influence labour market outcomes. Humlum,
Nandrup and Smith (2019) find that gender identity
9 For example, the hourly wage ratio between a managerial and a skilled manual job in 2020 was around 2.00 in the Nordics: 1.91 in Denmark; 1.96 in
Norway and 2.04 in Sweden, whereas in Eastern European countries it was 2.96 in Bulgaria, 2.76 in Hungary and 2.25 in Latvia (based on Eurostat data).
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Exhibit 17
Gender attitudes and norms across Nordic countries, 2012, per cent of respondents
Attitudes towards gender roles in family income
A1. Men’s job is to earn money, women’s job is to take care of the home
(women respondents)
1
DK
FI
IS
NO
SE
6
6
4
8
8
12
86
80
88
89
87
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree/strongly disagree
A2. Both the man and women should contribute to the household income
1
DK
80
77
82
84
87
14
15
13
13
10
6 1
7 1
5
2
1
2
1
FI
IS
NO
SE
Can’t choose
3 8
2
10
Strongly agree/agree
Attitudes towards running a family with children under school age
B1. What is the best way to organise family and work life with a child
under school age?
1
DK
FI
IS
NO
SE
27
43
37
43
38
8
8
14
5
16
6
19
23
35
Both mother and father part-time
Can’t choose
Father part-time, mother full-time
B2. If both parents are in a similar work situation and are eligible for paid
leave, how should this paid leave period be divided between the mother
and the father?
1
DK
FI
7 1
IS
NO
SE
25
43
48
48
49
1
Can’t choose
Father entire, mother not any
27
21
10
14
10 1
16
5
3
3
4
62
41
39
47
39
10
9
2
7
12
25
19
11
15
1
1
Mother part-time, father full-time
Mother at home, father full-time
Both mother and father full-time
Mother most, father some
Mother entire, father not any
Mother and father half
Attitudes towards women and working mothers
C1. A preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works
1
DK
FI
IS
NO
SE
20
16
11
10
10
13
13
15
9
12
71
70
75
76
72
Neither agree nor disagree
C2. All in all, family life suffers when the women has a full-time job
1
1
1
1
1
2
DK
FI
IS
NO
SE
Can’t choose
19
13
15
20
14
11
8
73
75
1
1
17
16
14
67
62
71
1
1
2
Strongly agree/agree
1.
Numbers are rounded
Disagree/strong disagree
Source: ISSP survey – DK; FI; NO; SE; IS (2012)
and norms tend to stick and help explain the
persistent gender gaps in career outcomes. Using
detailed registry data for Denmark, the authors
show a significant intergenerational correlation
between the choices made by parents and their
children. For example, they find that sons mostly
reflect fathers’ choices and behaviours, while girls
reflect the behaviour of both parents but stronger
so of the mother. This implies that established
norms, preferences and behaviours within families
can carry over to the following generations. Brenøe
and Lundberg (2018) show that the transmission of
preferences and choices display strong same-sex
correlations across family generations, especially
when it comes to labour market behaviour.
This poses a significant challenge from a policy
perspective as such norms and strong transmission
mechanisms are difficult to change.
Gender norms are a powerful source that can shape
gender roles in society. We leverage representative
survey data from 2012 run by ISSP, covering 6,500
respondents, equally distributed and weighted
across the five Nordic countries
10
, to investigate the
perceptions with regards to three general gender
stereotype themes:
i)
Attitudes towards gender roles in family income
ii)
Attitudes towards running a family with
small children
10 Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland are included in the survey analysis. The survey is conducted every 10 years; the latest release of the
survey from 2012 was used for the report and can be found in the ISSP (2016) publication.
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Exhibit 18
Career balancing within the household across gender and roles
share of employees by gender and role, %
My career is consistently a higher priority than my partner’s
1
Our careers are consistently of equal priority
2
My partner’s career is consistently a higher priority than mine
Prefer not to say
Executives
Women
Men
33%
+16 p.p.
67%
49%
43%
67%
+13 p.p.
8%
7%
10%
1% 5%
11%
14%
3%
13%
Managers
Women
Men
16%
29%
9%
19%
+10 p.p.
65%
65%
Non-
managers
Women
Men
65%
100%
1. Incl. respondents stating ‘My partner does not work’
2. Juggled on a day-to-day basis, or we take turns prioritizing one partner’s career for extended periods of time (e.g. months)
Note: sample sizes: n = 27 women executives, n = 420 women managers, n = 971 women non-managers, n = 51 men executives, n = 583 men managers and n = 1,071 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
iii)
Attitudes towards family life with working women
and mothers
As more recent surveys and data are not available,
we believe that the results from 2012 are generally
representative today, given the evidence that gender
stereotypes, cultural norms and attitudes tend to
stick and take a significant time to change.
In section A1 of Exhibit 17, 87 to 89 per cent of women
in Iceland, Norway and Sweden do not agree that
‘Men’s job is to earn money, and women’s job is
to take care of home’, whereas for Denmark and
Finland, this share is between 80 to 86 per cent. The
differences are more pronounced when looking at
section A2, where 80 out of 100 people in Denmark
believe that women and men should contribute
to the household income, whereas in Norway and
Sweden, the share is higher at 84 to 87 per 100. Taken
together, the facts suggest that while it is generally
accepted and expected for women to participate in
economic life and contribute to household income,
in countries such as Denmark and Finland, this
perception is less strong, compared to the rest of the
Nordics, especially Sweden.
Sections B1 and B2 explore the attitudes on work-
life balance and split of childcaring responsibilities.
Denmark is the country where the highest share of
respondents, 43 per cent, indicating that set-ups
where fathers work full-time and mothers part-time
are seen as most desirable, followed by full-time work
32
both for fathers and mothers, 27 per cent. In Sweden
only 27 per cent and 14 per cent share the same view,
respectively. The notion of a part-time working mother
and father is more widely accepted across Sweden,
Norway and Iceland (35 to 25 per cent) compared to
Denmark and Finland (10 to 14 per cent). This suggests
that in Denmark, the majority perceives the best
family organisation to be one where the father works
full-time while the mother is also economically
involved mainly through a part-time or, to a lesser
extent, full-time job. In Sweden, family organisation
is seen as more equal, with the expectation that
both fathers and mothers work part-time or
full-time. In addition, the common perception is that
parental leave should be split in half between parents
(62 per cent), whereas across the remaining Nordic
countries only between 39 to 47 per cent see this as
the preferred split, with Denmark having a similar mix
to Finland and Norway.
Finally, looking at the attitudes towards working
women and mothers in C1 and C2, it appears that in
Denmark a larger proportion of respondents sees a
concern for children or family life when women are
working. One in five women in Denmark – the highest
share among Nordic countries, agrees that a preschool
child would suffer if the mother were working, whereas
in Sweden, Norway and Iceland this share is two times
smaller. A similar share of people believes that a full-
time working mother is not ideal for family life.
The evidence across the three themes of social norms
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‘In my neighbourhood, it is accepted
to outsource household chores, but it is very frowned
upon to have (paid) help for children. It is more
accepted if grandparents help with children but not
if one pays for external help.’
— Woman in executive role with children
indicates that Sweden has the strongest egalitarian
expectations towards genders. It is expected for
both men and women to be involved in contributing
to household income, sharing parental leave equally
and view a model where both parents work in equal
proportions as most desirable. Denmark, together
with Finland and Norway, appears to have less
egalitarian social norms that showcase patterns of
more traditional gender roles.
The findings for Denmark are also consistent with the
Career Choice Survey results, where women reported
disproportionately greater concern for not being able
to care for their family and children compared to men.
In addition, Exhibit 18 shows that men rarely have
partners whose career is more highly prioritised than
their own (0 to 3 per cent of men across seniority levels
reported that their partner’s career is consistently a
higher priority). In contrast, even when women reach
the executive level they predominately live in a dual-
career household, i.e., their partner’s career is of equal
priority (reported by 67 per cent of women executives).
The presented evidence on gender attitudes is also
supported by Exhibit 18 where men’s career is in
general seen as being more important.
An important question is to what extent gender
stereotypes determine outcomes at managerial and
executive levels. In this context, one definition of
stereotype is ‘widely held but fixed and oversimplified
image of a particular type of person or thing’ (Bordalo
et al. 2016). It is helpful to distinguish between
two types of stereotypes that can influence the
perception of a person or society group: i) descriptive
stereotyping and ii) prescriptive stereotyping.
Descriptive stereotyping deals with how men
and women typically act, whereas prescriptive
stereotyping deals with how men and women should
typically act (Koenig 2018). The prescriptive type is of
particular interest when investigating the question
of why women are underrepresented in leadership
positions as strongly established social norms lead
to an expectation of how women should act or
behave in society, at home and at work. Such gender
stereotypes can have a direct impact on women’s
choice to pursue a managerial or leadership career if
society typically attributes such careers with men and
masculine traits.
Smith, Eriksson and Smith (2021) investigate the
prevalence of gender stereotypes among Danish
managers and find significant evidence of gender-
stereotyping attitudes and beliefs about own
managerial skills. The key finding is that women
managers rank themselves lower compared to men
on masculine management traits
11
(e.g., determined,
in self-control, willing to take risk, competitive,
confident) and higher on feminine management
traits (e.g., socially competent, dialogue-oriented,
helpful). In addition, women hold fewer gender
stereotypical attitudes of what defines a successful
manager compared to men.
A relevant finding is that regardless of gender, firms
with a stronger focus on work-life balance have fewer
stereotypical attitudes. This implication is important
for organisations as promoting policies aimed at
making the workplace more inclusive and with
greater focus on work-life balance may help alleviate
and soften entrenched gender biases.
2.3 Promote
In the ‘Promote’ step, men and women make
the transition into roles with a higher degree of
responsibility by managing and leading teams; this is
also a critical step in understanding the factors that
could drive to the drop-off of women from leadership
career paths. We investigate i) the perceived fairness
of promotions in today’s career ladder design, ii) the
support men and women receive to advance their
careers and iii) factors such as split of caregiving
responsibilities and unpaid work.
11 Smith, Eriksson and Smith (2021) based the categorization of traits on Gmür (2006).
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
‘I do think I get presented with more opportunities
compared to my immediate female peers because I don’t
have children. My managers assume I am more
exible’
— Woman in managerial role without children
Among surveyed companies, women are less
likely to become managers and executives
compared to men
The survey analysis finds that for every 100 men
who are promoted to manager, only 76 women are
promoted to manager. Moreover, for every 10 men
in managerial positions who become executives,
approximately five women managers become
executives (Exhibit 19).
12
These findings are in line with the analysis of the
career progression of all graduates from 2008 and
2009 in Denmark, as discussed in sub-chapter
2.1, where women face worse odds in climbing the
career ladder than men. Comparing the results from
both sources, the Career Choice Survey and the
population of higher education graduates, establish
a lower and upper bound to the likelihood of women
becoming managers and executives. The analysis
of graduates reveals that for 100 men promoted to
managers, 58 women are promoted to managers in
the private sector (male manager share of 63%, see
Exhibit 12), whereas the survey results report higher
odds for women, with 76 women being promoted to
managers for every 100 men.
A larger share of surveyed women disagree
that today’s design of the career ladder is fair
compared to men
Exhibit 20 shows that women generally perceive
career advancement opportunities as less fair and
objective compared to men. Women’s scepticism
towards the fairness of the system becomes even
stronger as they climb the career ladder. For example,
while close to 40 per cent of women executives
strongly or somewhat disagree that promotions are
based on fair and objective criteria, only 19 per cent
of men executive counterparts share the same belief.
In addition, while 32 per cent of women executives
strongly or somewhat disagree that they have equal
opportunity for advancement compared to their
Exhibit 19
The likelihood of becoming a manager and executive for men and women
For every 100 men who are promoted to manager…
…76 women are promoted to manager
For every 10 men managers who are promoted to executive…
…~5 women managers are promoted to executive
Men
Women
Men
Women
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
12 Women’s advancement into manager and executive roles is further reected in the share of women in the boardroom: Smith and Parrotta (2018)
studied Danish private sector companies and found that a connection exists between the proportion of women among top executives (CEOs or VPs) in
a given industry and women’s representation in boardrooms.
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Exhibit 20
Perception of fairness of advancement opportunities and promotions
Perceived fairness of opportunities for advancement
% of employees who believe they have equal opportunity for advancement
compared to their peers in their organisation
2
13%
Neither agree nor disagree
1
Strongly or somewhat agree
Strongly or somewhat disagree
Perceived fairness of promotions
% of employees who believe promotions at their organisation are based on fair
and objective criteria
2
10%
25%
41%
41%
50%
27%
12%
22%
24%
17%
16%
21%
61%
54%
62%
60%
64%
47%
55%
43%
39%
44%
71%
18%
Men
22%
Women
21%
Men
27%
Women
20%
Men
32%
16%
Women
Men
20%
Women
21%
Men
29%
Women
38%
19%
Men
Women
Non-manager
Manager
Executive
Non-manager
Manager
Executive
1. Includes ‘Don’t know’ responses for employees answering whether they have equal opportunity for advancement compared to their peers in their organisation
2. Numbers are rounded
Note: sample sizes: n = 34 women executives, n = 571 women managers, n = 1,363 women non-managers, n = 69 men executives, n = 748 men managers and n = 1,492 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
peers in their organisation, only 20 per cent of men
in executive positions share the same view. When
comparing men and women at the non-managerial
level, the differences in perceived fairness of the
system appear to be relatively small across genders.
This suggests that women face higher invisible
barriers as they transition to more senior leadership
roles. Smith, Verner and Smith (2013) also point to the
fact that performance evaluations and candidate
selections can be influenced by unconscious biases
and thus be perceived as less fair from the minority
group’s perspective. Examples include managers/
boards who are less willing to hire individuals
from a minority group and supervisors evaluating
performance based on unconscious biases around
what productivity level, efforts and behaviours
contribute to successfully performing a task.
Women managers and executives are exposed
to a lesser extent to career-advancing opportu-
nities and advocated for compared to men
When transitioning from a non-managerial to a
leadership role, being exposed to and receiving help
from senior leaders in the organisation is helpful in
further advancing one’s career (OECD 2020b). The
survey analysis finds that a higher share of senior
Exhibit 21
Employees receiving support from senior leaders to accelerate career advancement
% of managers who report what senior leaders in their organisation have done to help them (other than their direct managers)
Advocated for me (e.g. recommended me for a project or promotion)
Created opportunities for me (e.g. pulled me onto a new project)
Provided me with career-related support or guidance
Connected me with other leaders who could help my career development
Provided me with guidance managing work/life challenges
Helped me further my career in response to me asking for it
Encouraged me to take on a high-profile project or stretch assignment or to ask
for a promotion
Helped me further my career without me asking for it
Not sure
None of the above
Note: sample sizes: n = 593 women managers and n = 780 men managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
Men
Women
21%
20%
19%
12%
10%
8%
7%
6%
6%
6%
8%
10%
10%
10%
14%
22%
21%
27%
34%
40%
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Exhibit 22
Frequency of informal interactions with senior leaders in the organisation
Numbers are calculated as a % share of column total (i.e., by gender and role)
Managers
Women
Once a week
or more often
41%
Men
51%
Difference in likelihood
0.8x
Once a month
23%
23%
1.0x
Once a year
or quarter
23%
20%
1.2x
Never
13%
6%
2.0x
Note: Sample sizes: N = 506 women managers, N = 1,147 women non-managers, N = 640 men managers, and N = 1,244 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
leaders takes effective actions to help men managers
and executives progress in their careers compared
to women at the same seniority level. A statistically
significant lower share of women is being directly
recommended for new projects or promotions (i.e., 21
per cent of women managers versus 27 per cent of men
managers) and has opportunities created for women by
more senior leaders (20 per cent of women managers
versus 22 per cent of men managers) (see Exhibit 21).
In addition, when asked to what extent employees feel
supported by their managers, a lower share of women
report being supported by their direct managers.
Especially at the executive level, the perceived level of
support received significantly decreases for women.
81 per cent of men in executive positions strongly or
somewhat feel supported by their manager, and only
59 per cent of women executives report the same. Even
among managers, 80 per cent of males strongly or
somewhat feel supported by their manager, while only
74 per cent of women do.
The Career Choice Survey also reveals that women
are less likely to interact informally with senior
leaders in their organisation, especially at the
manager level (see Exhibit 22). 50 per cent of men
managers have very frequent informal interactions
with senior leaders in their organisation (e.g., once
a week or more often), whereas only 41 per cent
of women managers have the same frequency of
informal interaction. Correspondingly, a significantly
larger share of women managers never has informal
inactions with senior leaders compared to men
(13 per cent vs 6 per cent). This suggest that the
professional network of women at the manager
level is less strong and connected to the executive
layers of organisations compared to men, which puts
them at a relative disadvantage when it comes to
leveraging their network for career advancement.
Consistent with the survey findings, von Essen and
Smith (forthcoming) have studied how the size of
professional networks and interactions affect men and
women’s chances of being appointed to supervisory
boards and how effects differ by gender. The study
shows that between the period 1995 to 2011, men
did not only have an advantage in the number of
connections, but their networks also counted with
more connections to large and listed firms. These
findings are particularly strong when looking at first-
time promotions into supervisory boards (ibid.).
‘Women should lower the expectations for themselves in terms
of what they need to deliver both in the workplace and at home
– they are setting the bar too high. This is society’s biggest
Achilles’ heel for increasing the number of female leaders.’
— Woman in managerial role with children
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‘If we want to create gender equality, we have to change how we view
parental leave. Some men view ten weeks of leave as a vacation. It’s hard
work, and it’s hard to return to your job while juggling sick children and
limited sleep. I see my male peers with male bosses having a hard time
getting parental leave. The recent increase in earmarked leave for fathers
is a step in the right direction, because this needs to change’
— Woman in non-managerial role with children
Women’s career advancement is impacted
to a greater extent by parental leaves and
household and caregiving responsibilities
compared to men
In today’s modern society, women typically still bear
a heavier burden of household work and caregiving
responsibilities (Iversen, Rosenbluth and Skorge
2020). This is consistent with our survey findings,
suggesting that women rarely have a partner with full
responsibility for the household work regardless of
their level of seniority (only 4 to 10 per cent of women
through seniority levels reported that their partner is
fully responsible for household work) (Exhibit 23). In
contrast, 19 per cent of men managers have a partner
responsible for most or all household work, and that
share increases to 27 per cent for men at the executive
level. Top-end jobs are typically unregulated in terms
of working hours and wages, and when employers
recruit workers for such jobs, candidates that are
available for around-the-clock work are typically
valued higher by companies (Iversen, Rosenbluth
and Skorge 2020). Naturally, this puts women at a
disadvantage in terms of working hours available
and likely delay promotions. This puts additional
pressure on women to signal job commitment to
overcome unconscious biases around women not
being interested in stretch assignments because of
potential conflicting obligations outside work.
Household duties are also not equally distributed
across genders and seniority levels. At the non-
managerial level, 43 per cent of women are mostly
or fully responsible for household work – for men at
the same level the share is 24 per cent. The relative
differences increase at the managerial level, where
women are more than three times more likely to
be the partner that is mostly or fully responsible
for household duties compared to men. This
means women in non-executive jobs also face an
additional burden when signalling flexibility and job
commitment.
Exhibit 23
Split of household work responsibility across roles
and gender
Women are typically mainly responsible for household tasks,
and compared to men, women rarely have partners with full
responsibility of household work
My partner or someone else is responsible for all or most
I share responsibilities equally with a partner
I am responsible for all or most
% of employees who report who has the main responsibility when it comes to household work
1
15%
4%
19%
6%
27%
55%
68%
+19 p.p.
-17 p.p.
10%
53%
61%
70%
62%
+27 p.p.
43%
24%
Men
Women
12%
Men
39%
11%
Women
Men
20%
Women
Non-manager
Manager
Executive
1. E.g. housework, childcare, managing family’s schedule, helping children with school
Note: sample sizes: n = 30 women executives, n = 487 women managers, n = 1,107 women non-managers, n = 55 men executives, n = 618 men managers and n = 1,175 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
‘The long maternity leave in Denmark has a major impact on
your career. You become more like a side-track, and you don’t
even know if your job will still be there. When I returned, my
position was gone and I decided to quit.’
— Woman in executive role with children
Exhibit 24
Relationship between household work responsibilities and career progression
I am responsible for all/most
I share responsibilities equally with a partner
My partner/someone else is responsible for all/most
The influence of household work responsibilities on the likelihood of career advancement
% of employees who reported what they received in the last year vs. their level of household work responsibility
Respondents can select more than 1 option (totals will not sum to 100%)
~1.2x
49%
54%
56%
29%
~1.2x
12%
15%
14%
32%
27%
26%
29%
28%
2%
A promotion (i.e.
moving up a job level
with a change in title)
An increase in
compensation (e.g. higher
salary or hourly rate)
An increase in job
responsibilities
without a promotion
2%
1%
3%
2%
2%
None
1
A decrease in
compensation (e.g. lower
salary or hourly rate)
A demotion or unwanted
reduction in job
responsibilities/hours
Career advancing
Career regressing
1. None of the options: ‘A promotion’, ‘An increase in compensation’, ‘An increase in job responsibilities’, ‘A decrease in compensation’, ‘A demotion and/or unwanted reduction in job responsibilities/hours’
Note: sample sizes: n = 1,039 employees who are responsible for all/most household work, n = 2,080 employees who share responsibilities equally with a partner and n = 385 employees who have partners
responsible for all/most household work (or have someone else responsible)
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
Exhibit 24 further shows that respondents with
partners who are responsible for most or all household
work saw higher promotion rates and increases in
compensation. 49 per cent of the survey respondents
who are responsible for most or all household work
received an increase in compensation in the last year,
that share increased to 56 per cent among those with
partners who are responsible for most or all household
work. Similarly, respondents who have a partner
responsible for most/all household work were almost
1.2 times more likely to receive a promotion in the last
year compared to respondents who are responsible
themselves. Invisible work, especially related to
household management and chores, represents a
visible obstacle for women during the most fragile
transition points in their careers.
egalitarian countries paradoxically feel most burned out,
as they are performing a dual role with high expectations
for both (Roskam et al. 2022). They found that the
psychological distress of women increases upon
becoming mothers as they have most duties related to
childcare and housework compared to men, but are also
expected to participate equally in the labour market.
Exhibit 25 reveals that even though most men and
women felt supported when they took parental leave,
40 per cent of woman managers and 50 per cent of
woman executives worried that it would hurt their
careers, i.e., this concern increases the higher up
in the hierarchy women are. In contrast, it appears
that men rarely are concerned about how their
careers would be impacted regardless of their level of
seniority. According to a study, starting a family has
a negative impact on women’s prospects of having a
leadership career (Kleven, Landais and Søgaard 2019;
Holst-Jensen and Taasby 2018). Therefore, the design
of parental leave schemes matters significantly in
determining the division and share of time spent away
from the labour force but also in forming the division
of care responsibilities for the foreseeable future.
Surveyed women are signicantly more
concerned that taking parental leave will
negatively impact their career advancement
compared to men
A recent study has shown that women in the most
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Exhibit 25
Employees’ experience with taking parental leave
from their organisation
1
% of employees reporting what they felt during their
parental leave, ranked by the highest % share of women respondents
(respondents can select more than 1 option)
Non-managers
Worried that it would hurt my career
31%
12%
4%
64%
49%
16%
5%
12%
10%
3%
68%
55%
28%
11%
Women are much more concerned that taking parental
leave will hurt their careers compared to men…
Positive experience
Negative experience
Women
Men
Managers
40%
7%
6%
57%
41%
17%
5%
12%
6%
2%
68%
52%
33%
13%
Executives
50%
20%
10%
40%
20%
<1%
<1%
6%
<1%
6%
78%
44%
11%
11%
Like I’m a burden to my team
Judged
Supported
Like it’s a normal thing and no big deal
Like it would not have any impact on my career
Set up to succeed
1.
Excl. respondents reporting ‘Other’ (i.e. 4%, 3% and <1% of women non-managers, managers and executives, respectively, and 3%, 2% and <1% of men non-managers, managers,
and executives, respectively)
Note: sample sizes: employees who have been on parental leave from their organisation, of which n = 32 women executives, n = 133 women managers, N = 255 women non-managers, n = 59 men executives,
n = 174 men managers, and n = 290 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
Exhibit 26
Support from organisations to employees upon
return from parental leave
…however, both men and women believe that their
organisations do little to support them upon return
% of employees who report each of the actions that their organisation took to support their return after parental leave
76%
Women
Men
55%
26%
17%
7%
None
1
8%
10%
Made a plan
for my return
5%
3%
2%
1%
1%
1%
7%
<1%
3%
Not sure
Proposed flexible Proposed decrease Provided me with
formal mentors
working models
in travel activity
Provided me
with a coach
Other
Employees not receiving help
from their organisation
Employees receiving help from their organisation
1. None among the listed actions ‘Made a plan for my return’, ‘Proposed flexible working models’, ‘Proposed decrease in travel activity’, ‘Provided me with formal mentors’, ‘Provided me with a coach’
Note: sample sizes: employees who have been on parental leave from their organisation, of which n = 398 women and n = 482 men
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
‘If someone has three children, it will take mothers
out of the labour market for around 2.5-3 years.
This means the women will be less skilled than
their co-workers, and it is also very diicult to
come back to work after all those years.’
— Man in executive role with children
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
‘What will make a real change - that is the paternity
leave. In my job I was the
rst
one, 12 years ago, to
take paternity leave and now every father takes it.
The earmarking of parental leave for the father will
be a big thing’
— Man in executive role with children
Even though employees generally feel supported in
taking parental leave, both men and women believe
that organisations take little concrete actions to
support them upon return. 76 per cent of men and
55 per cent of women believe no support was given
as Exhibit 26 shows. This suggests that a large
share of both women and men would benefit from
formalised actions to support them upon return
from parental leave and reduce the likelihood of
being left behind in their career development.
the development of statutory provisions. Collective
agreements still take legal priority where equivalent
provisions are provided (ibid.).
Among the Nordics, Denmark emerged early on as
a leader in legislating on daycare provision – driven
by an agenda of facilitating women’s labour market
participation and the dual-income family model.
Despite its leadership in this policy area, Denmark
was late relative to the other Nordic countries when it
comes to taking active measures to advance equality
in certain areas of work and family life (Gíslason
and Eydal 2011). The right to joint parental leave
and dedicated paternity leave was guaranteed late
compared to Nordic peers although more extensive
provisions can be found in Danish collective
agreements, covering a large share of the working
population.
Historically, implementation timing and
differences in labour market and parental leave
policies across the Nordics have contributed to
the gender equality paradox
Nordic labour law has traditionally rested strongly
on collective agreements rather than statutory
provisions (Roseberry 2002). In Denmark, such
collective labour law traditions have also impacted
Exhibit 27 shows the timing of important parental
leave policy initiatives across the Nordics. Denmark
Exhibit 27
Overview of policy implementation timelines related to parental leave policies
Frontrunner
Introduction timeline
Policy theme
Parental leave
policies
Policy initiative/law
Joint parental leave
Paternity leave
Fathers’ quota
Description
Leave could be split between 2
parents of a child
Earmarked leave for the father,
immediately after childbirth
Earmarked share of the shared
parental leave
8-11 weeks
1984
1984
1997
(abolished
2002)
2022
(11 weeks)
...
1980
1978
2003
1974
1980
1995
1987
1977
1993
1981
1998
2001
Extensions of fathers’
earmarked paternity
leave amount
2013
(9 weeks)
2022
(*16 weeks)
2002
(8.7 weeks)
2016
(14.3 weeks)
2009
(10 weeks)
2013*
(14 weeks,
reversed in
2014, raised
to 15 in 2018)
...
2002
(8.7 weeks)
2003
(13 weeks)
12-16 weeks
17-22 weeks
...
...
...
2020
(17.3 weeks)
2021
(21.7 weeks)
Source: Løvslett Danbolt; Iselin. All about Business: Nordic women on boards and in leadership. Nordic Council of Ministers; Nordic Council of Ministers Secretariat, 2016. Valdimarsdóttir, 2006.
“Nordic experiences with parental leave and its impact on equality between women and men”
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Exhibit 28
Paid parental leave entitlements for fathers and
mothers in 2020 across Nordic countries
Additional
9 weeks to
be earmarked
for fathers from
2022 for a total
of 11 weeks
Denmark has the lowest amount of parental leave reserved for
fathers compared to other Nordic countries
Paid paternity leave
Paid parental leave reserved for fathers
Paid maternity leave
Paid parental leave available to mothers
Total paid leave reserved for fathers, 2020
Length,
weeks
Average
payment
rate,%
Full-rate
equivalent,
weeks
Total paid leave available to mothers, 2020
Length,
weeks
Average
payment
rate,%
Full-rate
equivalent,
weeks
Ratio of
full-rate
equivalent
leave
1
Denmark
Finland
Iceland
Norway
Sweden
OECD average
EU average
1.
2
3
6
52%
9
17
15
63%
N/A
N/A
58%
N/A
N/A
N/A
63%
78%
96%
77%
N/A
N/A
1
6
14
14
11
18
32 50
18
9
17
18
26
68
86
144
161
52%
75%
78%
96%
77%
N/A
N/A
52%
19%
78%
33%
57%
N/A
N/A
26
40
20
40
35
~25x
~7x
~2x
~3x
1
13
14
9
13
43 56
18
32 50
22
43 65
~3x
2
7
2
5
7
Ratio calculated as mothers’ full-rate equivalent available paid leave to fathers’ reserved full-rate equivalent paid leave
Source: OECD
Paid maternity leave
to be reduced from 18
to 15 weeks
and available parental leave
to
be reduced from 32 to 26 weeks
from 2022
introduced parental leave – which could be split
between two parents – in 1984. Sweden was the first
country in the world to introduce this policy in 1974
(Valdimarsdóttir 2006). Over the decades, the trend
among Nordic countries has been moving towards
an expansion of leave time and earmarked paternity
leave; however, the earmarking of parental leave for
fathers has not been implemented at the same time
and to the same extent across Nordic countries.
Iceland, Norway and Sweden all introduced
earmarked shares for fathers in the 1990s and have
expanded them step by step since.
13
While fathers
in Denmark were initially granted two weeks of leave
immediately following birth in 1984, they were also
given two additional earmarked paternity leave
weeks in 1997. This right was, however, removed in
2002 and then reintroduced again. According to
Borchorst (2006), the discussion on earmarking leave
for fathers in the early 2000s solely revolved around
the argument of individual choice, whereas structural
aspects like the impact of such policy on attitudes
were not brought into focus.
Earmarked parental leave for fathers varies
signicantly across Nordic countries, leading
to differences in uptakes rates and dispropor-
tionately longer parental leave for mothers
Until recently, Denmark was an outlier in the Nordic
context when it came to earmarking parental leave
for fathers: there was, up to the 2022 reform, only
two weeks of paternity leave reserved for fathers
upon childbirth and none of the shared parental
leave was earmarked for men. Following the
reform, 11 weeks of earmarked parental leave will be
guaranteed to each parent starting from 2022.
Rostgaard and Ejrnæs (2021) argue that this
deviation from other Nordic countries can in part
be explained by incremental policy change. The
Danish approach towards equality throughout the
years can more broadly be seen as emphasising
equality of opportunity, evident in both the national
goals set for gender equality as well as dominant
discourses (Schulstok and Wikstrand 2020;
Borchorst, Christensen, and Siim 2002). Such an
13 Except for Norway, where the earmarked leave for fathers was decreased from 14 to 10 weeks in 2014 but increased again from 10 to 15 weeks in 2018.
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
‘The notion in society is that if a man says: ‘I am taking 3
months of parental leave, it is celebrated and seen as a big
deal’. But when a woman says I am taking 6 months, the
question often is ‘Why not longer?’ There are very strong
cultural mechanisms forcing women to take more than
planned and social pressure among mothers is real…’
— Woman in managerial role without children
Exhibit 29
Fathers’ share of parental leave in 2009 and 2019
1
%
34
31
25
2009
2019
31
24
13
11
7
11
12
Denmark
1.
Finland
Sweden
Norway
Iceland
Share of benefit days taken by men. Per cent of benefit days taken by men excludes special maternity allowance and maternity allowance days before childbirth
approach has also translated into family policies
that create the conditions for families to choose the
most suitable arrangements rather than government
intervention (Drange and Egeland 2014); however,
they also reinforce implicitly traditional gender
norms where the mother has the primary caregiving
responsibilities as no designated parental leave for
fathers was available until the reform in 2021 (Smith,
Eriksson, and Smith 2021).
Based on the policy change in Denmark, from 2022
each parent will be entitled to two weeks after the
child’s birth, followed by 22 weeks allocated to
each parent. Out of the individual parental leave of
22 weeks, nine weeks will be non-transferrable to
the other partner and 13 weeks can be freely
transferred. This change does not impact the total
number of parental leave weeks available (48 in
total); however, it aims to change the allocation
between parents, leading to 11 weeks being
earmarked for fathers. In comparison, all other
Nordic countries had parental weeks specifically
reserved for and only accessible to fathers. For
example, in Sweden each parent is entitled to 240
42
days (around 34.28 weeks) of parental leave, out
of which 90 days (around 13 weeks) are earmarked
for each parent and the remaining 150 days can be
transferred to the other parent.
While in Denmark collective agreements and
company-specific policies can deviate from national
legislation thresholds and exceed those, Exhibit 28
also shows that there are significant differences
in pay rates. On a full-rate basis, Iceland, Norway
and Sweden have the most balanced allocation of
parental leave when it comes to the amount reserved
for the father and amount accessible to mothers.
Denmark ranks last as the ratio of full-rate equivalent
parental leave weeks is 26:1 for women. For the
remaining Nordic countries, this split is significantly
more balanced at around two to three times and
Finland at seven times. This distribution inevitably
strengthens societal expectations of mothers being
seen as primary caretakers and being expected to be
on parental leave significantly longer than fathers.
Collective agreements and individual employer
policies can go beyond the national policy and
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Exhibit 30
Paid leave entitlements of working parents to care for sick children
Paid leave entitlement
for working parents
with sick child(ren)
Denmark
Iceland
Sweden
Norway
Finland
1.
2.
3.
4.
Paid leave conditions per child per year, 2020
Length,
days
Avg. payment rate,
%
Eligibility criteria
Depending on collective agreements
Depending on collective agreements
120
2
10-20
1
4 per child sickness
episode
4
77.6% (up to a maximum amount)
100% (up to a maximum amount)
Children under age 12
3
Children under age 12
Children under age 10
Depending on collective agreements
10 days per child per year when the parent has 1-2 children under the age of 12, 15 days per child per year when the parent has more than 2 children under the age of 12 and 20 days for a single parent
60 days may be used in the event the regular caregiver falls ill
Or under 15 years old in special circumstances
Renewable without a limit
Source: OECD 2020a; Table PF2.3 “Additional leave entitlements of working parents”
parents can have different incentives on how to
split the available parental leave depending on the
financial conditions (full or partial salary) offered
by their respective employers. Hence, in instances
where mothers are offered a significantly longer
period of fully paid parental leave compared to
fathers, the household is less incentivised to have
the father take a greater share of the combined
parental leave. Based on the surveyed organisations,
there are significant differences in the number of
fully paid parental leave weeks offered to mothers
and fathers. The variance ranges between
1.5 to 3.5 times more weeks of fully paid leave
for mothers compared to fathers and significant
differences in the number of fully paid maternity
leave weeks, ranging between 14 weeks (legal
minimum) to 26 weeks.
The design of the leave system also affects the
realised uptake of parental leave (EIGE, 2021).
Research on uptake patterns shows that earmarking
leave for fathers has a strong impact on gender
equality in terms of parental leave uptake (Rostgaard
and Ejrnæs 2021). Among the Nordics, the varying
degree of flexibility in parental leave schemes is
also evident in the uptake patterns. In comparison
with other Nordic countries, fathers in Denmark and
Finland take the smallest share of total available
leave (Cederström 2019).
Exhibit 29 illustrates that fathers in Denmark took, on
average, only 13 per cent in 2019 of the available parental
leave benefit days compared to 31 per cent in Sweden
and Iceland and 25 per cent in Norway. On average,
Nordic countries with dedicated paternity leave reserved
for fathers through earmarking, such as Sweden, Norway
and Iceland, also have higher uptake rates.
Even though earmarked paternity leave is in place,
Finland’s uptake rate for fathers appears to be on par
with Denmark. However, it is important to note that
the shareable parental leave is longer, which implies
that even though fathers take a comparable share
of available benefit days, the absolute number of
days taken in Finland is higher than in Denmark.
Datta Gupta, Smith and Verner (2008) and
‘With my partner we have discussed that probably I would go
for a longer period on parental leave than him. This is also
driven by
nancial
incentives because we have a gap in our
earnings and his employer gives him signicantly shorter paid
paternity leave’
— Woman in non-managerial role without children
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Exhibit 31
Employees who have experienced microaggressions during
the normal course of business across roles
Women leaders are more likely to face microaggressions
compared to their men counterparts
Women
Men
Non-managers
Needing to justify your expertise or evidence more than others
Being interrupted or spoken over more than others
Having your judgement questioned in your area of expertise
Having others comment on your emotional state (e.g. ‘you’re too angry, feisty, emotional’)
Hearing or overhearing insults about your culture or people like you
Feeling like you are expected to speak on behalf of all people with your same identity
Feeling like you have to be careful when talking about yourself or your life outside work
Having others comment on your appearance in a way that made you uncomfortable
Hearing others express surprise at your language skills or other abilities
Not being invited to social gatherings of co-workers
Being confused with someone else of the same race/ethnicity
23%
29%
29%
18%
9%
9%
18%
11%
17%
7%
4%
15%
21%
26%
11%
7%
6%
12%
7%
13%
5%
5%
Managers
29%
35%
35%
25%
13%
11%
19%
8%
15%
6%
7%
18%
27%
25%
16%
9%
7%
11%
5%
11%
5%
5%
Executives
50%
47%
44%
31%
25%
22%
19%
19%
16%
13%
9%
20%
29%
33%
18%
11%
2%
13%
4%
9%
4%
6%
Note: sample sizes: n = 33 women executives, n = 491 women managers, n = 1,121 women non-managers, n = 55 men executives, n = 625 men managers and n = 1,195 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
Kleven, Landais and Søgaard (2019) also point out
differences in the family-related policies across the
Nordics, leading to different patterns of fathers’
uptake of parental leave.
Sweden having fixed payment rates up to a maximum
amount (payment rates of 100.0 per cent and 77.6
per cent of earnings, respectively), whereas collective
agreements determine payment rates in Finland.
The differences in conditions imply that, for example,
in Denmark, households are often incentivised to
have the partner with the lowest salary stay home
to care for the child to minimise the joint financial
impact on the family economy. Based on the gender
wage gap, men earn on average higher gross hourly
earnings – 14 per cent higher than those of women
in Denmark (Eurostat 2020a).
14
The differences in
policies across Nordics and the extent to which
policies are put in place to compensate parents
staying at home due to child sickness can be a
contributing factor to reinforcing established gender
norms. Women are more likely to stay at home and
care for children in situations where women earn the
lower share of income in the household and where no
policy is in place that stipulates the allowed number
of days and payment conditions.
Mothers are more likely to stay home and care
for sick children when no formalised policy is in
place for paid leave entitlements due to child
sickness
Children, particularly those in childcare, often require
care due to sickness; therefore, parents need stay
home and occasionally be away from work (Nordic
Council of Ministers 2019). Across Nordic countries,
parents have the right to stay home to care for their
sick children. However, whether parents are entitled to
get paid while they are on leave varies across countries.
In contrast to most Nordic countries, Denmark and
Iceland do not have legislation that entitles working
parents to get paid during child sickness leave.
This is regulated through sector-specific collective
agreements, and in Denmark, the duration a parent
can stay home is typically one to two days (Nordic
Council of Ministers 2019; OECD 2020a). In Sweden,
Norway and Finland, legislation requires that parents
with sick children under the age of 10 or 12 get
paid during their leave. The duration and payment
conditions vary across countries, with Norway and
2.4 Retain
In the stage ‘Retain’, women fully transition and
settle into managerial and executive roles. We
examine women’s day-to-day experiences as the job
14 The equivalent unadjusted gender pay gap in 2020 is 13 per cent for Norway, 13 per cent for Iceland, 11 per cent for Sweden and 17 per cent in Finland.
The indicators used are ‘SDG_05_20’ and ‘EARN_GR_GPGR2’ and are dened as unadjusted as it gives an overall picture of gender inequality in terms of
pay and goes beyond the concept of equal pay for equal work. All employees in
rms
with more than 10 employees are covered in the metric.
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changes. We look into what efforts are being made
by leaders to support and retain women in those
roles. In addition, we examine to what extent DE&I
efforts are prioritised, promoted and committed to
by organisations, and to what extent such efforts are
formally recognised and rewarded.
in non-managerial roles experience microaggressions
to a lesser extent than women managers, which in
turn have less of these experiences compared to
women executives.
Compared to women in non-managerial positions,
women at the executive level are approximately
2.3 times more likely to be the only woman in the
room. The disproportionately higher share of men
at the top means that executive women are often
the only women in their immediate peer group. This
creates a higher degree of visibility for them but also
potentially triggers a stronger feeling of loneliness.
Research shows that the ‘onliness’ phenomenon
often leads to even worse experiences in the
workplace regardless of gender. While it can enforce
behaviour where employees hold back more in
terms of expressing themselves, it also increases
the risk of experiencing differential treatment
(McKinsey 2019a). Even though women are more
likely to face microaggressions in the workplace
compared to men, the survey also provides evidence
that the odds are higher when employees are the
only ones of their gender in a group – regardless of
whether they are a man or a woman (Exhibit 32).
These findings have significant implications for how
organisations think about the composition of teams
at the workplace.
Women’s day-to-day job becomes more
difcult when they transition to managerial
and executive roles
The survey results show that as women transition
to management roles, their day-to-day experiences
on the job become more difficult. Women with
managerial responsibilities are much more likely
to face microaggressions compared to their men
counterparts (Exhibit 31). These microaggressions
range from having others comment on the emotional
state (e.g., ‘you’re too angry, feisty, emotional’), being
interrupted more often than others and having one’s
judgment questioned in their area of expertise more
than others. Men face the same microaggressions
but at a significantly lower rate, and it appears
that the share of men experiencing those does not
change regardless of seniority levels. For women, the
trend worsens across all types of microaggressions
as they climb up the career ladder. In general, women
Exhibit 32
The inuence of being the only of your gender in ofce
on the experiences with facing microaggressions
Women are more likely to experience discrimination in the
workplace than men, but being the only woman is an even
worse experience
Employees who have experienced microaggressions during the normal course of business,
%
Only woman or only man
in office
Being interrupted or spoken over more than others
Having your judgement questioned in your area of expertise
Needing to justify your expertise or evidence more than others
Having others comment on your emotional state (e.g. ‘you’re too angry, feisty, emotional’)
Feeling like you have to be careful when talking about yourself or your life outside work
Hearing others express surprise at your language skills or other abilities
Feeling like you are expected to speak on behalf of all people with your same identity
Having others comment on your appearance in a way that made you uncomfortable
Hearing or overhearing insults about your culture or people like you
Not being invited to social gatherings of co-workers
Being confused with someone else of the same race/ethnicity
43%
41%
36%
31%
29%
22%
20%
19%
19%
12%
5%
37%
36%
27%
21%
22%
17%
15%
14%
12%
11%
7%
Women
Men
Woman among other women
or man among other men in office
25%
26%
20%
16%
14%
13%
6%
7%
7%
4%
5%
21%
24%
14%
11%
9%
11%
5%
5%
6%
4%
4%
1. Excl. employees who responded that they ‘Sometimes’ are the only one of their gender in the room at the office or that they are ‘Not sure’ how often this is the case (n = 377 women and n = 392 men)
Note: sample sizes: n = 862 women and n = 1,295 men among other women/men in office, and n = 405 women and n = 188 men who are the only men/women in office)
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
Exhibit 33
Employees reporting how their direct manager
supports them
% of employees with women vs. men direct manager
Checked in on my overall well-being
Invited me to team bonding events
Worked with me to ensure my workload was manageble
Promoted an environment where people can discuss challenging topics
Helped me navigate work/life challenges
Provided emotional support for me
Helped me take actions to prevent or manage burnout
None of the above
Employees with a woman direct manager are more likely
to report that their manager supports them
Women managers
xx
Men managers
P.p. difference between employees with a woman and a man as manager
50%
48%
37%
33%
32%
29%
31%
31%
28%
23%
18%
12%
16%
14%
8%
11%
+2
+4
+3
<+1
+4
+6
+2
-3
Note: sample sizes: n = 1,442 employees with a woman direct manager and n = 3,047 with a man direct manager
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
Women are setting new standards for
leadership, but their additional efforts are not
formally recognised
Studies have shown that compassionate leaders
foster more loyalty and engagement in their teams,
ultimately leading to better team performance
(McKinsey 2020a and 2021c). The COVID-19
pandemic, however, further increased the pressure
on managers to provide emotional support to their
teams. The survey shows that employees with
women managers are more likely to report that their
manager is consistently doing more to promote the
well-being of their teams compared to employees
with men managers (Exhibit 33). Examples include
providing emotional support, helping navigate
work-life balance, and inviting employees to social
events. While women are setting a new standard
for leadership, they also carry a heavier emotional
workload compared to men managers in supporting
employees.
Women at the top also consistently do more to
support women in the workplace, especially by
Exhibit 34
How managers and executives
support women in the workplace
Senior women leaders are most actively involved in supporting women in their
workplace, and they also sponsor more women than their men counterparts
Men
Women
Managers supporting women at the
workplace,
% share of managers
I advocate for new opportunities for women
If I see discrimination against women, I actively work to
confront it
I actively listen to the personal stories of women about
bias and mistreatment
I publicly acknowledge or give credit to women for their
ideas and work
I educate myself (e.g., read books, attend events) about
the experiences of women
I mentor or sponsor one or more women
I take a public stand to support gender equality
I actively solicit the perspectives of women when making
decisions
None of the above
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
Executives supporting women at the workplace,
% share of executives
44%
49%
61%
46%
54%
25%
42%
69%
64%
61%
61%
58%
56%
51%
25%
31%
42%
38%
45%
45%
46%
15%
21%
25%
33%
19%
11%
11%
24%
30%
34%
25%
3%
4%
44%
31%
Note: sample sizes: n = 36 women executives, n = 593 women managers, n = 72 men executives and n = 780 men managers
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‘We have no specic person/people appointed as
DE&I responsible - I would not know whom to go to
and discuss DE&I improvement initiatives or other
related matters’
— Woman in non-managerial role with children
Exhibit 35
Employees’ perception of their organisation’s
prioritisation of DE&I and execution on
DE&I commitments
Perceived organisational prioritization of DE&I
% share of employees who report how much DE&I is a priority to their
organisation
Not a priority/a
slightly
important priority
15%
10%
24%
21%
31%
35%
+15 p.p.
Men are more likely to perceive that their organisation prioritises
DE&I and follows through with their commitments to promote DE&I
compared to women
Perceived execution on DE&I commitments in the organisation
% share of employees who report to what extent their organisation has
followed through on commitments to increase focus on DE&I
No organisational
commitments
27%
Not at all or
a little bit
A moderate
amount
40%
39%
12%
11%
20%
27%
18%
21%
28%
30%
A moderately
important priority
23%
42%
38%
36%
30%
+8 p.p.
41%
41%
69%
A top or a very
important priority
44%
54%
39%
37%
42%
A great deal
47%
49%
57%
36%
31%
30%
Non- Manager Executive
manager
Non- Manager Executive
manager
Non-
Manager Executive
manager
Non-
Manager Executive
manager
Men
Women
Men
Women
Note: perceived organisational prioritization of DE&I sample sizes: n = 33 women executives, n = 530 women managers, n = 1,257 women non-managers, n = 61 men executives, n = 695 men managers
and n = 1,355 men non-managers. Perceived execution on DE&I commitments in the organisation sample sizes: n = 27 women executives, n = 416 women managers, n = 834 women non-managers, n = 56 men
executives, n = 576 men managers and n = 860 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
educating themselves about the experiences
of women, mentoring and sponsoring women in
less senior roles (Exhibit 34). Even though men
outnumber women in management positions three
to one, only one in two (45 out of 100 employees)
report that their sponsors are mostly or all men.
This suggests that senior women leaders are
disproportionately more involved in sponsoring and
mentoring as their load is 1.5 times higher than senior
men leaders.
A disconnect can be observed between men and
women in the perceived prioritisation and execution
of DE&I commitments. Compared to women
executives, men executives are approximately 1.6
times more likely to believe that DE&I is a very high
or top priority and around two times more likely to
believe that their organisation followed through on
DE&I commitments to a great deal (Exhibit 35). The
perception among men that DE&I efforts are highly
prioritised within organisations increases in seniority
level, whereas for women the share remains roughly
constant across seniority levels.
While women leaders are more sceptical of their
organisation’s level of commitment to DE&I, both
genders predominately believe their organisations
do more to raise awareness around DE&I rather
than take concrete actions to improve DE&I, such
as investing and allocating more resources, setting
goals, holding leaders accountable for those goals
and providing training on biases/inclusion (Exhibit
36). A consistent pattern across is that a larger share
of managers and executives believe that DE&I efforts
are addressed through concrete resource allocation,
goals, accountability and trainings compared to non-
managers across different types of initiatives.
It appears that women executives are more actively
involved in promoting DE&I in their organisations.
However, they are approximately 1.3 times more
likely to spend time promoting DE&I without it being
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
a formal part of their job responsibilities compared
to men executives. Both men and women leaders
predominately experience that their work to promote
DE&I is not recognised formally through, e.g.,
performance reviews (Exhibit 37). This means that
critical work around employee well-being and DE&I
done by leaders generally is overlooked. However,
women leaders are investing a disproportionate
amount of time compared to men, meaning a greater
share of their contribution to their organisation is
undervalued.
Exhibit 36
Employees’ perception of organisational efforts
toward promoting and improving DE&I
Employees generally perceive that their organisations talk more about
DE&I importance rather than taking concrete actions to improve DE&I
% of employees who reported what their organisation has done in the last year related to DE&I
Most deployed
by organisations
Non-manager
Manager
Executive
Respondents can select more than 1 option (totals will not sum to 100%)
Women
45
61
75
47
18
20
15
15
44
16
18
33
9
14
28
12
17
14
12
17
14
22
14
8
Men
46
64
78
30
43
17
22
38
17
36
11
20
29
23
Senior leaders
spoke about
the importance
of DE&I
27
15
22
25
13
17
22
24
13
None
2
4
The organisation
The organisation
The organisation Leaders were held All employees
All employees
invested more
actively supported
took concrete
accountable for received training received training
employee
resources to
steps to meet
meeting goals or
related to
aimed at
promote DE&I
resource groups
DE&I goals
1
promoting DE&I combating bias
fostering DE&I
focused on DE&I
Resource allocation
Goals and accountability
Training
Awareness
1. E.g. requiring diverse slates in hiring or promotions
2. None of the efforts listed in the overview here
Note: sample sizes: n = 36 women executives, n = 593 women managers, n = 1,447 women non-managers, n = 72 men executives, n = 780 men managers and n = 1,590 men non-managers
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
Exhibit 37
The perceived extent of formal recognition
of DE&I-related work
Between ~27-63% of employees either don’t know how DE&I efforts are
recognised or believe that there is no formal recognition of DE&I efforts
% of employees who report to what extent the work they do to promote DE&I is formally recognized
1
, by gender and role
2
Numbers are calculated as a % share of column total
Men
Executives
Managers
Non-managers
Women
Executives
Managers
Non-managers
A great deal
32%
11%
8%
34%
10%
9%
Some
41%
39%
40%
28%
39%
28%
Not at all or
don’t know
27%
50%
52%
38%
51%
63%
1. E.g. in performance reviews
Note: sample sizes: n = 27 women executives, n= 416 women managers, n = 834 women non-managers, n = 56 men executives, n = 567
men managers and n = 860 men non-managers
2. Not answered by employees who responded that 'Promoting gender DE&I is not a part of my formal job responsibilities, and I don't
d i
i'
Source: Career Choice Survey 2022
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
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3. Considerations for
building a more balanced
representation of women in
leadership roles
The analyses so far have established an array of
factors impacting the progression of women in
the workplace both at the i) macro-level, i.e., social
norms and gender preferences, parental leave,
and paid leave entitlements, and at ii) the micro-
level, i.e., individual behaviours and biases, and
career advancing processes. While the obstacles
are interrelated and often manifest themselves in
multiple moments of women’s career progression,
we synthesise the obstacles leading to the gender
paradox across five major themes in Table 2.
Table 2
Obstacle themes behind the Nordic equality gender paradox
Themes
1. Education:
The gender
imbalance exists
already at the
beginning of the
talent pipeline
2. Unpaid work
and caregiving:
Women have to a higher
degree caregiving
responsibilities and unpaid
work compared to men
3. Career support
on the way to the top:
Women receive
career advancement
support to a lesser
extent than men
4. Workplace
inclusiveness:
Organisations are still
not inclusive enough
towards women,
especially at the top
of the career ladder
• Women in leadership
positions face more
microaggressions
(e.g., having their
expertise questioned,
being interrupted,
etc.) compared
to men
• Women are
also more likely
to experience
microaggressions
relative to men,
especially if a woman
is the ‘only’ one in
a group
• Women perceive
the opportunity
for advancement/
promotions as less
fair and objective in
today’s career ladder
design compared
to men, amplified
as women climb
the career
5. Workplace
DE&I commitment:
Actions focusing
on DE&I are not
sufficiently formalised
in organisations
Synthesis of
ndings
by theme
• The master’s
degrees that
produce the
most significant
share of
managers are
dominated by
men (business,
management
and economics,
technical
sciences, and
science)
• A relatively
higher share of
women enters
the public sector
compared
to men
• Women generally have a
larger share of household work
responsibility across all levels
of seniority
• Women’s careers are
disrupted to a greater extent
due to longer parental leaves
taken by mothers
• Denmark appears to have
relatively more pronounced
traditional gender norms
compared to other countries
(e.g., attitudes towards working
mothers, fair split of parental
leave between parents, etc.)
• Historically, parental leave and
caregiving policies combined
with gender attitudes and
cultural norms have been
further reinforcing traditional
gender roles (e.g., limited
parental leave earmarked for
fathers in Denmark, unavailable
legislation on paid entitlements
for working parents reserved for
care after sick children)
• Woman managers
are presented with
career-advancing
opportunities and
receive mentorship/
sponsorship to
a lesser extent
than men
• Woman managers
also have less
frequent informal
interactions with
senior leaders
relative to men and
hence less extensive
networks at work
• Women’s careers are
not prioritised to the
same extent as their
partner’s career
• DE&I efforts are not
sufficiently recognised
formally, and women
spend more time on
promoting DE&I without
it being a formal part of
the job compared to men
• A significant share
of employees is unaware
whether DE&I efforts are
formally recognised
• Accountability on
DE&I commitments is
currently not sufficient
as employees generally
do not believe leaders
are held accountable for
meeting DE&I goals
• A relatively higher
share of women
executives believe
DE&I is a low priority
and that organisations
do not sufficiently
follow through on DE&I
commitments relative to
men executives
Career lifecycle step at which obstacle occurs
Inspire
Attract
and Promote
Attract
and Promote
Promote
and Retain
Retain
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
The considerations are structured to tackle each of the
obstacle themes separately. However, as the barriers
are intertwined, the effect of one initiative might
help alleviate a barrier across several critical steps of
the career lifecycle. Governments play a key role in
promoting change through policies but also by driving
awareness in society. Similarly, business leaders are
well-positioned to take action at the company level and
drive change in culture and practices. While standalone
actions are effective, the biggest impact can be
unlocked only through coordinated efforts across
businesses and public institutions.
Promote an environment where girls and
women can identify with successful role
models to challenge stereotypes
While gender stereotypes take significant time to
change, as shown in sub-chapter 2.2, they evolve over
time. An effective way to break stereotypes is to build a
critical mass of examples that do not fit the established
stereotypical perceptions.
Role models are effective in countering stereotypical
beliefs about women and encouraging leadership
aspirations among women. Current findings suggest
that exposure to women leaders effectively reduces
stereotypical beliefs while activating positive beliefs
about women as leaders (Dasgupta and Asgari, 2004).
The impact of role models on girls’ attitudes, self-
efficacy and decisions to pursue a career in fields
characterised by a persisting gender gap has been
documented across numerous studies (e.g., Ashby
Plant et al. 2009; Zawistowska 2017; Stout et al. 2011).
In addition, it is important to celebrate role models and
ensure that successes and achievements are shared
and communicated across the organisation to ensure
wider reach and visibility for more junior colleagues.
Consideration 1 - Inspire the
next generation through
celebration of women
role models and talent
development programmes at
the early education stage
Even as women graduate in higher numbers than men
there are still continued imbalances across degrees,
leading to an underrepresentation of women in degrees
(e.g., STEM-related fields) that are more conducive to
leadership careers. It is known that gender-stereotyped
preferences start forming from a very young age, and
studies suggest that gendered notions of abilities
and roles influence children’s interests early on (Bian,
Leslie and Cimpian 2017, Brenøe and Zölitz 2020). Given
that ideas and interests are shaped at such an early
stage, they bear a considerable influence on decisions
regarding future educational choices and career
paths. Interventions challenging stereotypes as well as
targeting self-efficacy can be helpful in strengthening
interest in educational and professional areas where a
gender gap exists.
We investigate two sets of considerations to help
inspire the young generation and spark their interest
into fields that appear to lead to managerial and
executive career paths. Firstly, we consider ‘role models’
as important agents of change and inspiration for
women to see the path ahead and see themselves
in leadership careers. Secondly, we investigate what
initiatives could help boost the interest of girls within
STEM as these are the degrees where the gender
gap remains still significant. It is reassuring that the
underlying trends of increasing share of women in STEM
degrees and other main leadership-producing degrees
are already helping narrow the gender gap.
Reversing the gender gap in STEM through
campaigns and talent development programmes in
the early stages of the education
• Initiatives and programmes promoting STEM
can positively change young students’ attitudes
and identification with STEM (Guenaga et al. 2022;
González-Pérez, Mateos de Cabo and Sáinz 2020;
Microsoft 2018; Ashby Plant et al. 2009; UNESCO
2017). The format of these initiatives ranges from
group mentoring sessions and volunteers presenting
at schools to virtual interactions.
• Talent development training / initiative to recruit
and develop talent:
Womengineer, a foundation in
Sweden informs and inspires teenage girls to pursue
an engineering career. Among their most important
tools – ‘Introduce a girl to engineering day,’ where large
corporations introduce what it’s like to be an engineer
at their company. In 2022 alone, almost 2,000 girls
signed up and the foundation’s operations were
expanded to the US (for the first time).
• Problem-solving events and competitions:
For
example, Technovation Girls invites girls to solve real-
life problems with technology by producing mobile
app start-ups. More than 34,000 girls from over 100
countries have taken part in Technovation events.
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Surveyed alumni indicate broadened interest and
leadership skills development (Technovation 2021).
Consideration 2 - Promote
a family-friendly workplace
culture and challenge
established gender roles in
daily life by supporting a
balanced split of household
duties and caregiving
responsibilities
Companies can support families with family-
friendly workplace policies and initiatives
According to Heckman (2008) and UNICEF (n/d),
the early years of a child’s life have a lasting effect
on its future since children’s brains during this
time develop at the fastest rate. Hence, working
environments/employers should support parents
such that they can provide the right care and nurture
during especially the critical first years of children’s
life. From the Career Choice Survey results, we found
that women are predominately the main caretakers
after birth. We also found that their high degree
of caregiving responsibilities in their households
poses additional challenges when it comes to career
progression (e.g., getting promoted, receiving an
increase in compensation). It is therefore vital that
companies promote a family-friendly culture to not
only support new parents but also to retain talent.
Table 3 summarises examples of initiatives that help
promote a family-friendly workplace culture (UNICEF
n/d; Costantini et al. 2021).
Companies and public institutions can
incentivise a more balanced split in household
work and caregiving responsibilities to level
out the playing
eld
for men and women
Spending significant time on unpaid work such
as household activities and caregiving can put
employees at a disadvantage since it reduces their
Table 3
Example initiatives to promote a family-friendly workplace culture
Initiative
Expected benefit (not exhaustive)
Guarantee that women are not discriminated
Overall improvement of DE&I in the workplace
against
based on pregnancy, motherhood, or family
responsibilities in relation to, e.g., employment conditions,
wages or career opportunities
Offer policies to support breastfeeding mothers
including break allowances to express milk and provision
of private rooms/facilities for expressing and storing milk
Offer flexible working policies/arrangements
such
as work-from-home policies and part-time work
arrangements to both men and women
Establish a policy of “no meetings, no phone calls,
no e-mails” within blocked evening hours
to enable
undisturbed time for parents with their children
Appointment of colleagues/mentors responsible for
keeping parents on parental leave informed
about
organisational issues/successes
Jointly develop plans with workers
to support their
transition back to work (before the actual leave happens)
Provide coaching, motivational, and/or psychological
support
to new parents
Continuously monitor and collect data
on all aspects of
family-friendly policies to ensure protocols are followed
and improved where possible
Increased flexibility for families and catering
for parental needs
Increased flexibility for employees and enhanced
time prioritisation
Protected time for families, especially for those
with evening work obligations
Maintained feeling of inclusion and belonging to the
workplace during longer leaves
Eased transition of new parents and clear pathway
upon return
Mental health support for new parents
Improved reporting and greater commitment to
DE&I at the workplace
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
flexibility and availability around work-related
matters. The Career Choice Survey results show that
women are predominately responsible for household
and caregiving tasks – the same holds true for
women at the top of the career ladder. Decision-
makers across both the private and public sector
can play a role in balancing the split of unpaid work.
Companies can help incentivise a higher degree of
outsourcing of unpaid work, especially household-
related activities. The public sector can help raise
awareness in promoting more gender-equal split of
household duties and caregiving responsibilities.
Denmark made significant changes to the parental
policy in 2021 by increasing the earmarked
paternity leave. Based on evidence from other
Nordic countries, this change would contribute to
more equal division of care responsibilities within
households, gender roles and attitudes, which are
both strong factors explaining the gender paradox
in leadership roles. Even though the parental
leave policy reform is expected to foster women’s
advancement in leadership roles, companies can
consider the design of their individual parental
leave policies beyond national minimums. An even
more balanced split of the parental leave within
households can be achieved by equalising the
number of fully paid parental leave weeks offered to
mothers and fathers. Naturally, this will financially
incentivise households to have fathers take a greater
share of the combined parental leave. Research
published by the Nordic Council of Ministers (2019)
has even indicated that fathers who take longer
paternity leave have a positive impact on how
fathers see themselves as parents, the relation they
have to their partners, and the relation they have to
their work, including managers and co-workers. In
addition, fathers who took parental leave were also
more involved in household work, communicated
better with their partners about the needs of their
children and had a better understanding of their
children and partners’ daily lives.
As established earlier in sub-chapter 2.3, the lack of
legislation around paid leave entitlements of working
parents to care for sick children in Denmark might
also contribute to reinforcing traditional gender
norms where mothers are predominantly the ones
staying at home. Companies can therefore also
offer a fixed number of paid days, reserved for child
sickness, to both parents and thereby incentivising a
more balanced division of caregiving responsibilities
within households.
Besides providing caregiving support to families,
companies can also help reduce the need for
spending time on time-intensive and routine tasks
in the home, such as food preparation, clean-up,
laundry and clothes care, ground/animal care, home
maintenance, and purchasing goods/services.
Initiatives to reduce time spent on such tasks
include organisation-wide information sharing on
outsourcing services, available hotline for emergency
childcare support, but also financial compensation/
support for families to outsource services.
Public institutions can also help incentivise a
more balanced split of household and caregiving
responsibilities between mothers and fathers. The
EECE MenEngage Platform, a network initiated by
the United Nations reproductive health and rights
agency, points out that governments can work with
school administrations and teachers to further
challenge traditional gender stereotypes. Examples
of such collaborations include positive fatherhood
campaigns but also promoting educational programs
that educates both boys and girls about the skills
and knowledge required to executive household-
related tasks.
Consideration 3 - Support
talent on the way to the
top through mentorship,
sponsorship, leadership
programmes and functional
capability development
Mentorship and sponsorship programmes
deliver great benets for both workers and
organisations if implemented correctly
The Career Choice Survey results and our interviews
with women at Danish organisations show that
women receive career advancement support to a
lesser extent than men, especially at the manager
level. For example, women managers are not
being recommended for projects and promotions
at the same rate as men, and women managers
also have less frequent informal interactions with
senior leaders. Organisations can increase career
advancement support to women, especially
through establishing mentorship and sponsorship
programmes.
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Mentorship programmes can be designed to
achieve many different goals, including career
growth development of the mentee, connecting
the workforce across seniority levels, improving
retention rates, developing leaders, and/or
disseminating knowledge. When such programmes
are implemented effectively, the effects impact both
the individuals and the organisation overall.
A study examining the effectiveness of a mentoring
programme found, that mentoring programmes
boosted the minority representation at the
management level by between 9 to 24 per cent
(Dobbin and Kalev 2016). A workplace happiness
study conducted by CNBC/SurveyMonkey found
that workers with a mentor are more likely than those
without to say their contributions are valued by their
colleagues (89 versus 75 per cent) and state that
they are well paid (79 versus 69 per cent).
Sponsorship programmes are like mentorship
programs by design. However, a sponsor is
more actively involved in providing and creating
career-advancing opportunities for the sponsee,
whereas a mentor has more of a guiding role for
the mentee. Examples of how sponsors help with
career progression include involving the sponsee
in projects/work, advocating for the sponsee (e.g.,
recommending sponsee for a promotion/project),
connecting the sponsee to other leaders who can
help with career development, and/or encouraging
the sponsee to take on a high-profile project/asking
for a promotion. Both mentorship and sponsorship
programmes share similar best practices to ensure
successful implementation – ranging from clearly
defining the scope and the expectations of the
relationship and ensuring active engagement before,
during and after meetings (see Exhibit 38).
Leadership programmes and capability
development can help accelerate skill building
and prepare future leaders for the demands
of managerial and executive roles
The survey results established that women
are exposed to fewer career advancement
opportunities, are less connect with senior leaders
and face additional obstacles in the form of
disproportionately higher responsibilities with
household duties and caregiving compared to
men. The implications are that women’s experience
and skill accumulation at the job may be slower
for women if they have less flexibility around the
job or if they are exposed to high-impact projects/
opportunities less frequently.
Exhibit 38
Example best practices of the mentoring relationship
Mentee responsible
Mentor responsible
Engaging in the relationship
Defining the scope of the
relationship
Agree on the type of contact and the
expected response time
Decide on frequency, length and
location of meetings
Discuss the extent of confidentiality
of the topics discussed
Align the expectations for
receiving/giving feedback of both
mentee and mentor
Align the expectations of goals and
outcomes for both mentee and mentor
Discuss accountability for meeting
goals defined
Decide on evaluation criteria for success
of the relationship
Before sessions
Reflect on passions, interests and
career objectives
Identify and define professional
development goals that are specific,
measurable and attainable
Prepare a combination of open and
closed questions to get the most
out of the session
Prepare adequately for the session
by recalling previous discussions
with mentee
During sessions
Be willing to accept constructive
feedback and criticism
Actively listen during the
conversation, build on ideas and
ask clarifying questions
Be transparent and willing to share
your work-related experiences,
challenges and goals
Listen carefully to your mentee;
ask questions and acknowledge
frequently what mentee is saying
Provide constructive feedback as
a disinterested third party
Share yourself fully while weighing
different options with mentee and
let them find the solution
After sessions
Reflect on your discussion with
your mentor and set a specific
action plan to move forward
Update your mentor on significant
academic and professional
achievements
Respect mentee’s choice to do
what’s right for their situation
Have an open door – welcome
mentor’s requests for help and
provide assistance where possible
Follow up with mentee on actions
taken
Source: Forbes 2019 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryabbajay/2019/01/20/mentoring-matters-three-essential-element-of-success/?sh=2b86342045a9)
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
A case example:
The Master Mentor approach
The Master Mentor approach was developed
and piloted by the School of Medicine at John
Hopkins University in 2012 after the leaders
discovered high attrition among especially
women in junior faculty roles who reported
feeling invisible and unsupported (Johnson,
Smith, and Haythornthwaite 2020). In response,
the Master Mentor approach was developed to
increase the quality and frequency of mentorship
relationships by making the mentor selection
process highly competitive, including rewards
and recognition for those selected. The approach
follows three key steps:
1.
The university nominates mentors from a
pool of directors and managers who have
a consistent track record of successful
mentoring and actively seeks out the opinions
of junior employees (e.g. what directors/
managers are the most generous/caring/
helpful, and who do you go to for advice?).
2.
A committee selects mentors from the pool
of selected directors/managers, and those
mentors are consistently trained for six
months in, e.g. skill-building workshops; this
includes the participation of less tenured
employees.
3.
After the training is completed, the mentors
are certied (which is noted
in their personnel proles), and they actively
take on a greater share of the mentoring load.
The biggest lessons from the pilot were that
1) mentors selected need support, resources
and incentives to make the programmes a
high-priority activity, and 2) developing a
culture of excellence in mentoring and a strong
community of mentors requires engagement
and participation of leaders throughout the
organisation (Johns Hopkins University 2022;
Johnson, Smith, and Haythornthwaite 2020).
Therefore, organisations can support talented
employees at the workplace by supporting their
career advancement through dedicated leadership
programmes. Such programmes can be provided
both internally, depending on the size of the
organisation, through partnerships with specialised
business institutions or externally through academic
institutions (e.g., Harvard Business School Executive
MBA, The Stanford Leadership Development
Programme and IMD Executive education).
To reap the benefits from leadership development
programmes requires commitment from both the
participants and organisations. Such programmes
can be viewed as a ‘readying’ process, where future
leaders share experiences, learn from each other
and internalise the requirements and skills needed
to navigate complex leadership roles. A few guiding
principles based on research (Vinnicombe, Moore
and Anderson 2013; Eagly and Carli 2007; Thomson
2008) can help in the successful implementation and
outcome of leadership training:
• Principle 1:
Ensure that both management and
participants take joint responsibility and embed
such programmes fully into organisations.
• Principle 2:
Establish a safe space for selected
participants to work on their leadership
development.
• Principle 3:
Focus participants on leadership
self-efficacy as it takes effort and time to envision
own leadership value and areas of impact in the
organisation.
An additional consideration relates to providing
specific functional and capability training to
employees who have not been on managerial or
executive career paths. As the cohort analyses
showed, there is a significant drop in women
representation at the managerial level compared to
non-managerial. Therefore, a viable lever to increase
the women leadership talent pipeline at a faster pace
is to attract existing women employees from non-
managerial pathways to shift towards leadership
career paths. This could be achieved through
functional training courses aiming to equip women
with the skills and tools required to successfully
manage and lead teams within a specific function,
such as Sales, Finance and Operations.
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Consideration 4
Promote an inclusive
workplace culture and design
objective, transparent and
fair promotion processes
The survey findings that women in leadership
positions face significantly more microaggressions
15
and the career ladder is perceived as less fair and
objective than for men. Therefore, companies
in Denmark can strengthen inclusiveness by
focusing on improving two areas: 1) women’s
personal experiences in the workplace, and 2) the
transparency and fairness of career advancement
(e.g., promotion processes, compensation
increases/pay-outs).
Personal experiences in the workplace and how
employees perceive their organisation more broadly
are at the core of what defines inclusion (McKinsey
2020b). These experiences dictate how employees
feel connected to their workplace, how encouraged
they are to bring their full, authentic selves to work,
and how they feel empowered to make meaningful
contributions (Exhibit 39). Research has shown
inclusion is critical for both developing and retaining
talent, especially retaining talented women
(McKinsey 2019b and 2020c):
Exhibit 39
Illustration of the core components of inclusion
•
Employees who feel included in their organisation
are nearly three times more likely than their peers to
feel excited by and committed to their organisation.
•
The perceived lack of inclusion can cause
employees’ career progression to stall or even
stagnate, and especially so for women (42 per cent
of women have opted not to pursue or accept a
position because they believed the organisation
would not be an inclusive place to work,
ascompared to 32 per cent of men
16
).
Promoting an inclusive workplace culture
relies on awareness-raising, training, positive
reinforcement and accountability
Research shows that executives spend, on average,
almost 40 per cent of their time in meetings, meaning
that women leaders often find themselves in
situations where discriminatory behaviours typically
take place. Since these experiences are shaped
primarily by interactions with managers and peers,
all employees need to be empowered to be part of
the solution. Organisations can take several actions
to facilitate and accelerate such empowerment,
including, but not limited to raising awareness and
investing in ongoing education, encouraging positive
reinforcing behaviours, monitoring progress, and
enforcing accountability (McKinsey 2021b, Innovation
Fund Denmark and McKinsey 2018):
Overall inclusion
Personal experience
Authenticity
Individuals feel encouraged to be themselves and speak up at work
Enterprise perception
Acceptance
Employees value and embrace diversity
Belonging
Individuals feel connected to others at work
Camaraderie
Employees have strong bonds and work together towards shared goals
Meaningful work
Individuals feel their work is personally meaningful and valued, and
contributes to the company’s success
Source: McKinsey; People & Organisational Performance, 2021a
Fairness
Employees receive equitable treatment and have a
fair chance of success
15 Examples include feeling the need to justify their expertise or having it questioned by others, being interrupted more than others, and/or having others
comment negatively on their emotional state (e.g., they are too angry, feisty, emotional).
16 Among over 2,000 surveyed participants at the Women’s Forum Global Meeting 19 – survey conducted by McKinsey (2019b).
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1 Raising awareness and investing in
ongoing education
i. Raising awareness about the experiences of
women by encouraging to share data openly
(e.g., from satisfaction surveys).
ii. Bringing in thought-provoking speakers related
to DE&I topics.
iii. Offering training to employees to inform about
behavioural biases
17
.
2 Encouraging positive reinforcing behaviours and
monitoring progress
i. Promoting a culture of continuous feedback
and positive recognition.
ii. Employing guidelines and principles to increase
inclusiveness in meetings (e.g., colleagues are
encouraged to give room to each other to
express their viewpoints and avoid interrupting).
iii. Conducting higher frequency of employee
satisfaction surveys (less comprehensive)
and follow-up on low-scoring teams/
departments.
3 Enforcing accountability
i. Establishing clear roles, what is everyone
responsible for in progressing DE&I and getting
buy-in from senior leaders.
ii. Creating a direct link between effort and
consequence to build transparency on how
DE&I efforts are recognised.
iii. Employing disciplinary processes to eliminate
harassment, bullying and discriminatory
behaviour (e.g., discriminatory behaviours
tied to performance reviews, enforcement
of zero-tolerance policies, clear procedures
on reporting discriminatory/inappropriate
behaviours).
iv. Ensuring that employees can report
harassment, bullying, and discriminatory
behaviours through formal and informal
channels (also anonymously) regardless of an
employee’s seniority, role, or performance.
The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
introducing substantial bias to promotion processes
and misallocating employees in positions increases
(Prendergast and Topel 1996). Making promotion
processes transparent not only reduces the risk of
discriminating or favouring certain employee groups,
but it also increases the perceived integrity of leaders
among employees (Rohman, Onyeagoro and Bush
2018) and creates clarity on what the requirements
are for advancing along the career ladder. It also
establishes a very clear bar and set of requirements
needed to progress ahead at the workplace. While
performance management processes are often
adapted to the size of the organisation and local
context, organisations can follow practices to
minimise the risk of introducing biases:
• Ensure consistency in performance management
and execution of processes
– deviation from
and wide variations in process/execution across
teams and divisions can lead to disadvantages for
underrepresented groups (Aguinis 2019).
• Define clear, objective and debiased evaluation
criteria
and build scoring guides that illustrate
multiple demonstrations of high performance
– the absence of clear criteria and robust
processes allows for subjectivity and can lead to
unconscious biases (Nishiura Mackenzie, Wehner,
and Correll 2019).
• Establish training for managers/staffers
to
educate them about potential biases that might
affect performance assessments (e.g., anchoring
bias, affinity bias
18
) and refresh fair and consistent
recruiting process execution.
• Create diverse promotion slate requirements
from the eligibility pool (e.g., 20 per cent of
employees considered for a position are from
underrepresented groups or equally split gender
pools are considered for a position).
• Align manager incentives to maintain
consistency in the execution
of performance
management processes (e.g., periodic feedback to
employees, evaluation write-ups).
• Measure, track, and report evaluation outcomes
by gender to identify the location(s) and
magnitude of potential biases.
• Communicate and make the promotion process
transparent
for employees to limit the perceived
ambiguity and/or unfairness of the process.
Best-in-class promotions processes are
designed around a set of core principles to
ensure fairness
When performance evaluations are based on
subjective impressions held by supervisors, the risk of
17 Note that the evidence on the effectiveness of mandatory trainings is mixed, especially those that force on participants to behave differently (Dobbin
and Kalev 2016). Such trainings tend to lead to deepening biased behavior as employees often do not conform to rules aiming at limiting pre-dened
behaviors. Instead, trainings should engage managers and executives to jointly understand the issues with underrepresentation of minorities and foster
on-the-job contact with minority employee groups.
18 Anchoring bias refers to a cognitive bias where a person relies heavily on initial information on a given topic to draw conclusions instead of evaluating it
objectively against other pieces of information. Afnity bias refers to a cognitive bias (also referred to as ‘similarity’ bias), where people tend to connect
and favour people, behaviors, interests like their own.
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In addition to following best-practice guidelines
for performance management, organisations can
further equalise performance appraisal by:
1
Debiasing recruitment processes
by both
increasing awareness around bias but also
adopting tools to eliminate bias. Recruitment
is one of the most central processes of
organisations and still, a vast amount of research
shows that recruitment processes and decisions
also for high-profile positions continue to be
affected by gender bias and discrimination
(Heilman, Manzi, and Braun 2015).
2
Regularly performing audits of equal pay for equal
work
across the organisation to ensure rigorous
compliance with the Danish Consolidation Act on
Equal Pay to Men and Women – on average, men
earn 14 per cent more than women in Denmark
(Retsinformation 2022; Eurostat 2022a).
business leaders is therefore vital since the goals
and priorities set at the top cascade down in the
organisation and influence goals set at the lower
levels. Academic research (Bohnet and Chilazi 2020;
Castilla 2015, Chilazi and Bohnet 2020) and real-life
examples suggest that achieving DE&I goals require a
set of key interventions such as:
1
Assigning accountability for reaching each DE&I
goal to a specific person, unit or group in the
organisation and providing incentives for meeting
the goals.
2
Providing transparency around and
communicating the DE&I goals but also the
process to achieve them (both internally and in
public announcements).
3
Monitoring progress and reporting DE&I results
in a simple and comparable manner via e.g.,
dashboards with monthly revenue snapshots of
the organisation’s DE&I metrics and/or monthly
diversity reports broken down by department
with relevant benchmarking.
4
Engaging and nominating front-line employees
to actively participate in DE&I-improving efforts
such as recruitment, unconscious bias trainings
and talent development of women.
There are already examples of several large companies
who are releasing annual diversity reports detailing
their current DE&I status in their organisation,
including several members of The Diversity Council.
Consideration 5 – Visibly
commit to DE&I goals,
establish accountability for
meeting goals with leaders
and formally recognise
employees’ DE&I efforts
DE&I goals are effective means of driving
change when leaders are held accountable and
share transparency on progress against an
established baseline
Improving DE&I in organisations requires changing
organisational behaviour. Research has found that
setting DE&I goals while holding individuals and
organisations accountable for meeting those goals is
an evidence-based effective way of improving DE&I
(Berkman 2018; Bohnet and Chilazi 2020). However,
the survey analysis established that only between 16
and 33 per cent of employees across roles and gender
believe their organisation took concrete action to
meet DE&I goals, and only 14-29 per cent report that
leaders are held accountable for meeting DE&I goals.
Bohnet and Chilazi (2020) argue that goals
motivate the will to change because they involve
accountability, rewards/public recognition, and
induce competition, while providing direction on
how to change by focusing attention and inducing
persistence/commitment. The commitment of
Measurable targets should be in place in order
to assign accountability and provide incentives
for meeting DE&I ambition
Assigning accountability and rewarding leaders for
meeting DE&I goals is important for ensuring tangible
progress. Yet, the survey analysis reveals that 38 to
63 per cent of employees across roles believe that
there is no formal recognition of DE&I efforts, or
they are unaware of whether efforts are recognised
formally (except for men executives, of which
27 per cent believe so). To effectively determine
whether goals are achieved or not, organisations
must define a list of relevant metrics to monitor
and evaluate continuously. Even though metrics
often are industry- or even company-specific and
adapted to local context/demographics, Bohnet and
Chilazi (2020) argue that all companies benefit from
tracking metrics around workforce composition,
hiring, promotions, performance evaluations,
attribution and pay (Table 4). After organisations set
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
specific, measurable targets and goals, organisations
can further incentivise the accountable people,
units, and/or groups by tying progress to
performance reviews and bonus pay-outs.
In theory, gender equality in management positions
is achieved when there is an equal representation
of all genders. However, since there are already
gender imbalances in the beginning of the talent
pipeline, we argue that organisations should aspire
to have a proportional ratio of women to men at the
entry level. Organisations can then use all means to
improve the gender balance throughout the career
ladder using all strategies available – e.g., through
promotions, external/internal lateral hiring, and
improved retention.
Table 4
Detailed DE&I metrics for organisations to track (adapted from the Harvard Kennedy School 2020)
Data
Workforce
composition
Example metrics (non-exhaustive)
•
•
•
•
•
Employees by function/ level/ tenure/ gender (or other demographics)
Employee status (full-time/ part-time/ contractor) by gender
Gender representation in management (incl. executives/ board)
Employees reporting to managers (women and men) by tenure/ level/ role
Number and percentage of job applicants by gender/ role/ level/ channel (e.g., referrals,
own website), and application stage (e.g., CV drop, first round interview,
final round interview)
Number and percentage of women and men hired by role/ level/ function
Number and percentage of women and men promoted by level compared to the
available pool (i.e., gender composition at level from which promoted from)
Tenure in previous role and at the company overall before promotion
by gender/ level/ function
Performance scores/ evaluations given to women and men by level/ manager/ function/
tenure in company/ tenure in current role
Correlation between performance scores and promotions by gender
Available qualitative data on performance (e.g., write-ups – analyse language used and
length of write-ups by gender to see if there are discrepancies)
Number and percentage of women selected for developmental programmes (e.g.,
leadership trainings, high-potential development track)
Analyse nominations, invitations to participate, and eventual attendance/ participation
Number and percentage of women named in succession and talent plans
(i.e., leadership pipeline by gender)
Work/ project assignment by gender
Number and percentage of women participating in mentorship/ sponsorship
programmes
Correlate to career outcomes like promotions (if possible)
Number and percentage of women and men leaving the organisation by level/ function/
performance history/ tenure at company at time of exit
Analyse voluntary and involuntary exits separately
Any qualitative data (e.g., exit interview responses) analysed by gender
Compensation by gender/ level/ tenure/ education/ office/ geography/ performance
scores/ type of pay (base salary, stock awards, equity grants, performance bonuses)
Pay gaps within jobs and across/ between jobs and departments/ functions
Starting pay for new hires in the organisation, controlling for level, function, tenure,
education, office etc.
Employee satisfaction/ engagement scores and survey results by gender of respondent
Internal and external complaints (e.g., discrimination, bias, harassment)
and resolution status
Hiring
•
Promotions
•
•
Performance
evaluations
•
•
•
Talent
development
•
•
•
•
•
•
Attrition
•
•
•
Pay
•
•
•
Other
•
•
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Concluding remarks
This chapter outlined specic initiatives
that both public and private institutions can
undertake to tackle the identied obstacles
along the career lifecycle leading to gender
imbalance in leadership roles. The considerations
aim to tackle barriers to career advancement
starting from the beginning of the career journey
up until the very top of the career ladder.
The path to impact across considerations is
different and depends on the ambition level,
the starting point from which organisations
are departing and the end goal that they want
to achieve. To reap the greatest benets from
initiatives aiming at bringing more gender
equality in leadership roles, it is important that
both private and public organisations collaborate
and commit to common goals. Public institutions
can foster the public debate, raise awareness in
society, challenge existing norms and establish
new policies, building on the experience of
neighbouring countries. Private institutions
can invest in equalising the playing
eld
across
genders, put in place processes and practices
to support equally career advancement of all
genders and foster an even more inclusive culture
along the career ladder.
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The Danish gender equality paradox in leadership roles
62
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